I've discussed in past columns the fact that, while bluegrass bands still get booked at weddings, there are at most three appropriate bluegrass songs to play at a wedding. Even some of the instrumentals are questionable, at least if you
Opinion / Humor
From The Side of the Road… death at a bluegrass festival
This column was mostly written in September of 2021, after playing our first festival in front of real people since the start of the pandemic. It was at Thomas Point Beach. It felt so good to be back on a non-virtual
From The Side of the Road… simplified sloganeering
We're in an election year, and if you're just now hearing about that, I'd like to hang out wherever you do, maybe forever. What this means here in October of 2024 is that absolutely nothing about anything will be even
From The Side of the Road… band contracts 101
I'm taking this week off to recover from the stress of taking the previous week off. Therefore, I've asked John Lawless to rerun a slightly edited version (I changed one "the" to an "a") of a column I wrote a
Goodbye Raleigh – World of Bluegrass bids farewell to Raleigh, NC
Jamming in the shadow of the Raleigh sign at World of Bluegrass '24 - photo © Jeromie Stephens When IBMA's World of Bluegrass pulled out of Nashville in 2012, I spent most of the 12-hour drive home, and many of the
From The Side of the Road… returning to “normalcy” after WOB
Dateline: Raleigh. That’s the last time I'm likely to be writing that, at least at the end of September. I think we're all feeling a few pangs of sadness about the IBMA World of Bluegrass leaving here, but there's also
From The Side of the Road… healthy training for World of Bluegrass
The very first column I wrote for Bluegrass Today was about maintaining your health during the stressful IBMA World of Bluegrass week. Most of the advice I gave was either discredited or just laughed at, and not for the right
From The Side of the Road… What if I’m wrong?
Is the rerunning of a column about bluegrass conspiracy theories a blatant attempt to cross-promote our new single, What if You're Wrong? Perhaps, and there's a whole conspiracy theory in itself with some pretty solid evidence to support it. Esquire magazine
From The Side of the Road… A.I. and the bluegrass industry
It's been a while since I've done a video column, but the time felt right. I promise it's not just because the letter "B" doesn't seem to be working right on my keyboard, although that certainly is a factor. Have
From The Side of the Road… bluegrass plagiarism over the years
I read an interesting tale of the music business recently, in which an Edmonton music student and songwriter, Connor Shaw, claimed that a song he wrote was the basis for a recent number one song by country artist Jason Aldean,