Bluegrass Grows in Golden Gate Park. The line-up for the 8th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival has been announced for the first weekend of October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, its traditional location since its inception in 2001.
posted on Aug 17, 2008 - View this thread

dawn Landes & the We Sorta Tried Bluegrass Band perform a rather charming version of Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folks [SLYT].
posted on Jul 1, 2008 - View this thread

I tell you what, buddy, that ol' Joe Maphis fellow outta Bakersfield, he was one fast picker. Yup, fast as greased lightning and smooth as gaht-damn silk on that double-neck Mosrite guitar. He and the missus have a little advice for you, too: Don't Make Love In a Buggy. And though Joe was mainly a picker, he did pen one memorable little country ditty which you might've heard in some honky tonk along the line: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music). [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted on Feb 28, 2008 - View this thread

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He plays the banjo, but he isn't just some hick. He enjoys Chicks, jamming with friends, wide open spaces and fights.
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - View this thread

F i d d l e.
posted on Jul 28, 2007 - View this thread

Banjo
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - View this thread

MusicMoose wants "to provide the world with free, useful music lessons, and a community based site to help back it all up." The site contains hundreds of free video music lessons (often containing notation and/or tablature) with a distinct focus on acoustic and bluegrass music, all taught by some pretty badass pickers (including the astonishingly good mandolin shredder Anthony Hannigan). There are also obligatory but very useful forums. Takeaway: the whole thing is free and you don't have to register to watch the lessons.
posted on Jun 29, 2007 - View this thread

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud, Loud Music Photgrapher Henry Horenstein's Honky-Tonk: Portraits of Country Music, 1972-1981 captures a sound in transition. This evocative collection of informal, black-and-white portraits of country musicians and fans in bars, backstage, and on the road illustrate a decade when smoky roadhouses and venerated venues began to give way to the more mainstream Countrypolitan or "Nashville" sound. Seminal artists like Mother Maybelle Carter and Bill Monroe mingled backstage with shinier newcomers like Dolly Parton and Anne Murray. But even as the commercial sound was dominating, youngsters mixing with old-timers sparked the first wave of old-time/bluegrass revival, and some of the artists who got started then still carry the torch for a non-Nashville sound today. In this online exhibit you can watch it all unfold.
posted on Feb 2, 2007 - View this thread

Folkstreams.net has two goals. One is to build a national preserve of hard-to-find documentary films about American folk or roots cultures. The other is to give them renewed life by streaming them on the internet. The films were produced by independent filmmakers in a golden age that began in the 1960s and was made possible by the development first of portable cameras and then capacity for synch sound. Their films focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities. The filmmakers were driven more by sheer engagement with the people and their traditions than by commercial hopes. Their films have unusual subjects, odd lengths, and talkers who do not speak "broadcast English." Although they won prizes at film festivals, were used in college classes, and occasionally were shown on PBS, they found few outlets in venues like theaters, video shops or commercial television. But they have permanent value...

folkstreams.net Currently streaming are the films The Land Where the Blues Began , Cajun Country , Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now , Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot and Tap , Ray Lum: Mule Trader and Pizza Pizza Daddy-O , among many others.
posted on Oct 6, 2006 - View this thread

Clarence Ashley - The Coo Coo
Skip James - Crow Jane
Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years
Son House - John the Revelator
Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys - Close By
Houston Stackhouse & Joe Willie Wilkins - Cool Drink Of Water
Muddy Waters - Honey Bee
Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Lone Star Rag
Mississipi John Hurt - You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley
Maybelle & Sara Carter - Cannonball Blues
Al Green - Simply Beautiful
Enjoy. Note that, too, save for Mississippi John Hurt, there is more by each of the above artists linked on each clip's page.
The first is via FaheyGuitarPlayers, the rest were all in a day's surf. On dial-up, even.
posted on Sep 20, 2006 - View this thread

In 1961, on the Martha White Show, seven year-old mandolin prodigy Ricky Skaggs performs two songs with Flatt & Scruggs. "Ruby" and "Foggy Mountain Special". [both songs direct to youtube]
posted on Sep 16, 2006 - View this thread

David Lee Roth singing "Jump" with a bluegrass band on national tv - 6/6/06
posted on Jun 7, 2006 - View this thread

Made most popular to many Americans as the closing song for the Grand Ole Opry programs, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was written in 1907 by Ada Habershon, an intensely religious young woman and acquaintance of Dwight Moody and Ira David Sankey. The music was "composed" by Charles Gabriel, a popular songwriter and composer of the era who is often solely credited with the song, but while he may have put the notes down on paper, the tune itself already existed as the African-American spiritual Glory Glory / Since I Laid My Burden Down. [lots more inside]
posted on May 26, 2006 - View this thread

Bluegrass Talk Radio
posted on Mar 16, 2006 - View this thread

Going Down the Crooked Road. Explore the sights and sounds of Virginia's Heritage Music Trail.
posted on Feb 21, 2006 - View this thread

The strange story of Billy Yeager aka Jimmy Story the lost son of Jimi Hendrix aka independent film-maker extraordinaire.
I was wearing wigs and disguising myself as different kinds of people or sons of dead rock stars since 7th grade. I ran away at 13 years old. I lived in a tree house. I lost my virginity to a big fat girl who raped me on a hit of acid when I was 14 while her parents were in the living room watching All in the Family.

He's casting for a new film - albeit in a strange manner [swearing, violence, threats - maybe NSFW].
posted on Feb 11, 2006 - View this thread

Vassar Clements, dead at 77.
posted on Aug 16, 2005 - View this thread

Blue Ridge Music Trails. An invaluable resource for fans of old-time country, bluegrass, gospel and folk music in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Includes places and events like the Friday night Flatfoot Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store and the Saturday-night show at the Carter Family Fold .
posted on Jan 21, 2004 - View this thread

701 78s. A huge set of "old-time" music recordings from 1924-1946, made available in RealAudio format by honkingduck.com. Not high sound quality, but an invaluable collection for anyone with any interest in early recorded bluegrass, folk, country, blues, etc.
posted on Nov 10, 2003 - View this thread

Is American "Roots Music" here to stay, or will it peter out like the "folk revival" of the 1960's? The recent PBS series, as well as re-issues of classic bluegrass sets, portend well for those of us who love bluegrass. But is it just a flash-in-the-pan? What was the magic behind O Brother, Where Art Thou? Does anyone remember the old masters like Doc Watson, Merle Travis, or Vassar Clements? (Not to mention the Queen of the genre, Mother Maybelle Carter.) Or maybe you prefer the newcomers like Alison Krauss/Union Station.
posted on Apr 9, 2002 - View this thread

Let’s visit with the father of bluegrass, shall we? (inside)
posted on Mar 27, 2002 - View this thread