The Night Drivers and I just concluded the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association’s annual pre-festival Bluegrass Jam Camp, which we loved doing. It’s a really good, and well-run program in a beautiful setting. We’ve taught at numerous music camps
The past year has been a year of bluegrass mourning, as we’ve said goodbye to some of the music’s great pioneers and innovators. The deaths of celebrated figures have become more of a public concern in the internet era, and
As a songwriter, I get a lot of people who come up and ask how I write such horrendous tripe and pass it off as music. Where does the gift of garble come from? And is there money in it? The
I’ve become very disillusioned with the zodiac, I have to admit. First there were the overly general daily horoscopes: “Make sound financial decisions today. Expect news from a friend, family member, or other human being you may or may not
Guest Trivia Master – Bill Evans This month’s guest is banjo maven Bill Evans, who again received second-place in the Most Famous Bill Evans in the World contest at the People Named Bill Evans conference held annually in Evansville, Indiana. (There is
After last week’s column, I was inundated with requests for more uninteresting stories from the world of bluegrass, or any other worlds that may contain tales of the boring and predictable. I had no idea there was this unfulfilled need out
I hate lists. I have a to-do list that always seems to have the same ten items on it. It’s not so much a to-do list as a never-do list. What I do: I’ll do something, then write it down on
While in England recently, I was looking through the local newspaper and came across the headline “County gets new non-emergency number.” I was immediately comforted to know that the boring headline, followed by the even more boring story, isn’t just
Inertia: (noun) The resistance of any object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change. Wikipedia, p. 39,537,435. Further evidence of an IBMA conspiracy to promote bluegrass came to
Bluegrass musicians, and musical artists in general, often fall into a category of people who have a hard time with the bureaucratic and organizational side of the music business. Heck, some artists have a hard enough time just getting themselves dressed in
