• We have a winner!!

    Well, that was fun. There were some outstanding entries in our IBMA World of Bluegrass Mad Libs contest, and it was hard to pick a winner, so in the end, I gave it to the first entry to use the

  • Bluegrass Mad Libs, IBMA edition

    I was always a fan of the Mad Libs game. It’s at least as good a time-killer on the road as eating sunflower seeds in the shell, or guessing how long various bluegrass side musicians will last in their respective

  • It’s Christmas in September at IBMA

    This will be a very brief report from your IBMA World of Bluegrass correspondent (or one of them, anyway). The reason this will be so brief will be obvious to anyone who’s ever attended this event. For those who haven’t, let

  • What did you call me?

    Human beings love to classify things. That’s why we have a periodic table (at least I think we still have a periodic table). And, in 2016, human beings love to subdivide into ever more specialized subcategories. That’s why we have

  • Conflict resolution in bluegrass wordplay

    I was in the recording studio for Mountain Home records all this past week, and sometime right before doing another take on our soon-to-be-released medley of I Did it My Way and Wagon Wheel (in German), Ty Gilpin remarked that

  • Breaking up is hard to do… isn’t it?

    There’s plenty to worry about in the world of bluegrass, if you’re the worrying sort. Even those that aren’t the worrying sort can get that way in an election year, so let’s go ahead and worry. We have the issue of

  • Oh… so you think you’re special?

    A question has arisen in the last couple of weeks about a growing IBMA mystery: what on earth happened to the Special Awards? If you’re not familiar with them, those are the awards that are given out during the Special