Like every other music festival these days, last weekend's Walnut Valley Festival, normally held in Winfield, KS, will be hosted online. What would have been their 49th annual running of the festival, along with its prestigious picking competitions, was postponed until
This year’s bleak bluegrass festival season left both musicians and festival lovers disappointed. While bluegrass fans held out hope that late summer and fall festivals might not have to cancel, one by one festival promoters all reached the same conclusion,
Here's an interesting story about how a chance meeting at World of Bluegrass 2017 put two experienced bluegrass songwriters onto a co-writing opportunity, that is coming full circle at the 2020 virtual event. Mike Finders and Aaron Bibelhauser saw their co-written
The IBMA Songwriter Showcase Selection Committee has announced the finalists for the Songwriter Showcase, to be held in late September during their 2020 World of Bluegrass convention. Writers are chosen for this honor each year when the committee considers submissions from
Recording King has devised an interesting way to announce their newest series of vintage-style guitars, the Dirty 30s Deluxe. These value-priced instruments offer the look, feel, and sound of prized instruments from the 1930s at a fraction of the vintage
The IBMA Foundation has announced today a new scholarship for IBMA members who are studying songwriting in college, or plan to be in the coming semesters. It is endowed by Rick Lang, a prolific bluegrass songwriter who has received a
This interview was conducted in February 2018. It was meant to be the first episode of a new radio show focused on the craft of songwriting that never panned out. Tim O'Brien is a great hero of mine, and a
Organizers of the long running Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS have announced that Chris Jones will serve as the new curator of their NewSong Showcase. As they look forward to the 49th annual festival in 2020, their songwriting competition
Despite the cancellation of the 2020 MerleFest, the first round of judging for their annual Chris Austin Songwriting Competition was recently concluded. Since submissions had already been accepted when Wilkes County, NC officials restricted public gatherings of more than 100
MerleFest officials said Monday that the acclaimed Chris Austin Songwriting Contest will held, in a slightly altered format, even though MerleFest itself has been canceled for 2020 because of the coronavirus. The first contest judges waded through a record 1,065 entries
