This Valentine's Day, you might have the opportunity to take the one you love (or at least the one you don't mind too much) out to dinner, or to a movie. In other words, you might actually be going out somewhere
Chris Jones
From The Side of the Road… Mr. Bluegrass Manners looks at 2024
Mr. Bluegrass Manners has been away from us for a while. He hasn't been idle, however. He's been doing research for an upcoming book with the working title, Why You Gotta Be So Rude? He also recently spoke at an
From The Side of the Road… bluegrass fears, real and imagined
You may think of people who have chosen bluegrass music as a profession as fearless types who proceed boldly into the future without a care for their material comfort, or family and financial stability. Perhaps you're correct about the financial
From The Side of the Road… bad bluegrass business concepts
Today is a travel day for me as I hop a dog sled to a freight train to another dog sled to a plane to a rental car, eventually to Nashville during SPBGMA weekend. For that reason I offer up
From The Side of the Road… go on, tell the truth!
We're into the cold and dark part of the year, which goes along with the quiet part of the touring season. Since it's also a time of reflecting back on the previous business year, I wanted to open on a
From The Side off the Road… warning labels 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
From The Side of the Road… annual Bluegrass Quiz for 2024!
Happy New Year, friends and readers! 2024 is here at last. It's one of those special every four years in the cycle leap years: you know, the ones with the extra day in February, the summer Olympics, and a US
From The Side of the Road… New Year’s Rulin’s for 2024
Peter Thompson, noted California bluegrass DJ and former concert organizer, recently e-mailed out a copy of Woody Guthrie's New Years resolutions from 1942, which Woody called "New Years Rulin's." It was a long list, with 33 items on it, and had
From The Side of the Road… bluegrass bandleader gift ideas
This is it: the home stretch of the holiday shopping season is upon us. If you're reading this when it first hit the Bluegrass Today front page on Wednesday (morning edition), there are five more shopping days until Christmas, counting
From The Side of the Road… Mary and Joseph
Bluegrass bands face an annual challenge at this festive time of the year. And no, I don't mean the challenge of coming up with money to buy gifts when your band isn't working at all. Though it is a traditional time