A Prairie Home Companion will on this week's radio show be presenting three individually distinctive banjo players; Bill Evans, educator, composer and author; the progressive Noam Pikelny; and innovative old-time picker Joe Newberry. Also on the show are traditional county music
We heard the other day from Melvin Goins, an artist as deserving of the term bluegrass legend as anyone I can imagine. His work with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, The Stanley Brothers, with his brother Ray as The Goins Brothers, and
Noam Pikelny, banjo player with Punch Brothers, is set to use some downtime with the band this year to tour in support of his 2011 solo project, Beat The Devil and Carry A Rail. The record had been nominated for
Last week we ran across a fascinating video online, from a musician who assumes the nom de web of Stoney Lonesome. In real life, he is Andy Cartoun, a bluegrass banjo player and accidental filmmaker from the Northeast, who has
Last Thursday evening at SPBMA we had a nice chat with George Gruhn, proprietor of the legendary Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. He shared that the shop is preparing a move across town, leaving the bright lights of Broadway behind. Since 1970, Gruhn's
Who’s the world record setting banjoist with 5 Grammy nominations that you may have never heard of? That's Spartanburg, South Carolina native Todd Taylor. Having established the Guinness World Record for “fastest banjo player” at 210 beats per minute with
We have learned that Billy Joe Foster, noted Oklahoma picker, passed away today at 51 years of age. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Foster played fiddle with Bill Monroe, bass with Country Gazette, and several instruments with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder. He was
Chris Suen is a banjo player and old time music/dance enthusiast in Vancouver who was seriously injured in an auto accident in the late summer of 2012. He is a hard working musician, who had been touring throughout western Canada
At the early part of each year, prewar banjo enthusiasts of every stripe converge on the town of Maryville in east Tennesse for an annual celebration of all things banjo, known simply as Banjothon. The 2013 get together was held
After over 100 Jam Camps in America, Pete Wernick (aka Dr Banjo), has organised his first bluegrass Jam Camp in Europe. Pete's first all-Europe bluegrass Jam Camp is scheduled to take place in Prague, Czech Republic, over three days; March 22-24,
