Chris Jones

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

Sequels are so often disappointing, Santa Clause 2 being a notable exception. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol 2: The Next Verse wasn’t bad either. If you recall, Scrooge becomes the manager of the Cratchit family band and together—with a little

The concept of bluegrass “success” is a subjective one, especially in a world where the majority of bluegrass professionals hold at least an off-season day job (for what it’s worth, this was once true of professional athletes, too). Last week,

How do we define “success” in the bluegrass music business? We certainly can’t do it by the standards used in the mass market music world, where success is considered to have been achieved when you own your own airplane and

Thanksgiving is upon us. It’s a time when bluegrass musicians, sound engineers, event producers, etc. are all taking a break from their routines, and they’re all heading to a place called “home” (remember that?) or perhaps to a relative’s house.

This is week 2 of “National Post-election Can-we-all-take-a-break-from-fighting-each-other-on-social-media Month.” A good way to celebrate is to just go to sleep. That’s what I did, and for that reason, I don’t have a new column for you this week. I did

I was trying to think of a good mindless escape from post-election analysis and the inevitable elation or depression you feel, depending on which horse you had money riding on. Even if you’re one of those who are happy with

This will be my last column before the presidential race is all over, which means that one week from today, we in the bluegrass community can all go back to liking each other again. Back in the early days of this

The IBMA World of Bluegrass is now in the books (amazing that more than one book chronicles the history of bluegrass trade organization events), and now we can look back on it and take stock, or at least try to

Thanks to newly-acquired genetic information, I’ve discovered that I have Bavarian roots. Mark Stoffel, the Night Drivers’ mandolin player, who is half Bavarian, tells me he is half-pleased to hear this. In addition to being known for their outstanding pretzel and