This is my 500th column for Bluegrass Today. This has taken me a little by surprise; I thought I had run out of ideas by column 50, and perhaps I had. But somehow, even if running on fumes and a
Chris Jones
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From The Side of the Road… Catch the Bluegrass Wave
The IBMA is in the midst of a membership drive which has been christened, "Catch the Bluegrass Wave." Before going any further I want to encourage you to become a member of this organization that continues to do great work advancing
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The Price of Falling from Chris Jones & The Night Drivers
Mountain Home Music has a new single for Chris Jones & The Night Drivers, continuing in their signature style of thoughtful, understated songs that exemplify what's best in contemporary bluegrass. The Price of Falling is another that Jones has written, about
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From The Side of the Road… B-o-o-o-r-i-n-g
We have an annual(ish) tradition here, which is to compile some of bluegrass music's most uninteresting stories of the past year, after which I try to narrow them down to five that really stand out as yawn-inducers. Why do we do
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From The Side of the Road… It’s the law! (part 2)
Last week we unveiled some of the bluegrass laws contained in recently discovered ancient scrolls from 1978. So as not overwhelm you with legalism, we've broken this up into two segments. I shall now, slowly, open the second seal, which
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From The Side of the Road… Bluegrass Deuteronomy, book 1
Last week there was a rerun of my bluegrass rules column, which made for an appropriate setup for this one, which is more about bluegrass laws than rules. We all make jokes about the "bluegrass police," an arm of law enforcement
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From The Side of the Road… play by the rules
"I like the rules. I think you know how I feel about that." – Fake Santa in Santa Clause 2 In the 1970s, once bluegrass music had evolved into its own genre, with its own festival circuit, its own record labels,
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From The Side of the Road… 2023 new product review
As promised last week, it's time for what used to be referred to as our "annual new product review." I called it that until people pointed out (in what I thought was a somewhat high-and-mighty tone) that things that are
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From The Side of the Road… Facebook tips for bluegrass users
There will be an upcoming column reviewing the best new bluegrass-related products of the past year, but at the moment I'm still in the testing phase with several of them—right now I'm putting the "Blade Rubber," a banjo player's right
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From The Side of the Road… 2023 Bluegrass Quiz
Happy New Year! Was one of your resolutions to become more knowledgable about bluegrass music? Well, I'm afraid I'll be no help there, but if you'd like to start the year knowing how much you already know about it, you'll