The Story Behind The Song

Songs about coal mining have been a part of folk music from the time when major commercial production began in earnest in Appalachia in the 1870s, as exemplified by John Wallace Crawford’s Only a Miner Killed, composed in 1877.  Later, Florence

Jericho, a song about PTSD affecting a modern veteran soldier, was written by Evan Murphy the lead singer and guitarist of Boston-based quintet Mile Twelve, with assistance from the mandolin player in the band David Benedict. Musical arrangement was by

Bob Amos is best known for fronting the Colorado-based band Front Range that played together during the period from 1988 through to 2004, during which period they released seven albums.  Amos wrote roughly 75% of the songs recorded by Front Range,

Home in the Mountains was written by Rick Stanley, a cousin of bluegrass master Ralph Stanley and the husband of Donna Ulisse, a prolific songwriter in her own right. He was just 15 years old at the time it was

Reflections of Love was written by Paul Adkins, Fred Travers and Ron Pennington, the last two being part of the Borderline Band led by Adkins.  As the trio worked together beginning 1988 or 1989 there were plenty of opportunities for them

4th & Goal was written by Paula Breedlove and Brad Davis, a writing partnership that began way back in 1989.  It began life as a song for a film soundtrack, but in the process Davis changed the timing from that of

Donna Ulisse and Marc Rossi wrote the award-winning song I Am a Drifter when they got together for one of their regular song-writing sessions that, as Ulisse tells us, took place each Monday. On Thursday, September 28 last, I Am a

In recognition of veterans world-wide, we recall one of the most evocative war songs in the bluegrass music cannon, Curly Seckler’s Purple Heart. As told by Penny Parsons …. Curly Seckler wrote Purple Heart in 1952 when he was based in Lexington,

The Last Suit You Wear, written by Larry Williams, Larry Shell and Kim Williams, was recorded by Larry Sparks in the Fall of 2006 and released on the album of the same name on the McCoury Music label (MCM 0004),

Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish folk song, most commonly associated with Scottish bard Robert Burns, whose artistic legacy is celebrated on this date in his native country. He described it as ‘a song of olden times’ which appears to have been