Opinion / Humor

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the Brian Greene PBS series The Fabric of the Cosmos lately. It’s fascinating—things blow up and there’s talk about black holes and eleven dimensions. What I’ve learned is that somewhere there’s

In the previous column, I attempted to put the important steps any new band has to take into some kind of logical order. It’s not my intention to cover each one of these step-by-step, which is probably a good thing

Welcome to the new and smarter Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants! With this installment we introduce Guest Artist With a Clue, Reader Questions, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, contests, prizes, and actual bluegrass facts. Guest Artist With A Clue Our first

As Thanksgiving approaches, among the many (make that countless) things I am thankful for, I am thankful for my heritage. When I was much younger, particularly as a teenager, I sometimes wished for a more generic last name like Smith or Jones

Now that we’ve thoroughly exhausted the subject of band names, and you’ve arrived at your own, whether it be “Sausage: A Very Acoustic Band” or “Blue Ridge Railroad,” I thought we’d continue this series on band self-management, more-or less in

I made a solemn promise last week to wrap up this series-within-a-series on the naming of bluegrass bands, and I fully intend to keep my word. I was even tempted to move on to the next subject in the band

Before reading this installment of Blue Yodel, you may want to (re)visit a recent reference by John Lawless to an article written by columnist Joe Queenan in the Wall Street Journal. Dear Joe Queenan, I'm writing from the year 2111—a full 100

Or just riven by banjo envy? Author, reviewer and columnist Joe Queenan has taken to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to expose his hatred of all things banjo. His unburdening was putatively inspired by the recent PBS airing of

Occasionally in this column I’d like to look at a specific song and, if possible, talk to the songwriter about it. First up is Herschel Sizemore’s Rebecca, a bluegrass instrumental standard. I just heard a story from the respected and beloved

Before I continue this series on band self-management, and its sub-series on naming your bluegrass band, it might be useful to review some of what was discussed last week. A few recent trends in bluegrass music have also been called