In another video column, Chris shares a difficult decision he has reached regarding the use of social media. We salute him for his courage.
Opinion / Humor
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Random bluegrass rules for 2018
This column may be shorter than some. This week I made an unplanned visit to see my uncle in Oregon, who recently managed to come back from the dead. He was on life support and when they went to take
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But first, here’s Unmowed Grass!
Are you usually relegated to the status of opening act? Do you find yourself longing to be the closer? On the other side of the equation, are you a headlining act wishing you could go backwards in time and stature
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Reader Mail for Mr. Bluegrass Manners
During the past week, I received responses, both positive and negative, to last week’s column featuring Mr. Bluegrass Manners. Here are a few of the highlights, with the third one being my personal favorite, so make sure to read all
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Mr. Bluegrass Manners is back!
I’m pleased to announce the return of Mr. Bluegrass Manners. It had been my hope that he would be on hand to take questions more often, but he has spent all spring semester lecturing at the newly opened School of
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One of these things is not like the others
The death of Pete Goble represents a huge loss in modern bluegrass songwriting. In fact, I’ll be paying tribute to him during my upcoming “Truegrass” show on Friday. Pete wrote countless great songs, mostly with various co-writers, often the late
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A proposed rating system for bluegrass songs
Someone recently suggested to me that bluegrass music is every bit as violent as uncensored hip hop, especially towards women, and that bluegrass recordings should have parental warning stickers on them. I replied that I thought that was ridiculous. How
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In which you take our irregular mid-summer quiz
Sometimes late at night, in a fit of writer’s insecurity, I fear that almost no one reads this column, or if they do, they’re just skimming it without retaining any of its valuable information. This in turn leads me to
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Ernest Krankenbett’s rules for show biz cancellations
Greetings from Scotland! I’ve been on a short music tour/family vacation here and in Ireland, and I’m now getting set to fly to Chicago in the morning. I was the only driver among us willing and able to drive a
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I’m anxious, and lonesome too!
A while back, I wrote a two-part series on bluegrass dream analysis. Since that time, for whatever reason, I’ve had almost no bluegrass-related dreams. Perhaps I had gotten them out of my system. In the last year, most of my