It’s January 24th, which means almost nothing except that there are only eight more shopping days till Groundhog Day. That may not seem important to you, but for the country’s merchants who sell groundhog-related items, like groundhog-imprinted sheets and groundhog-shaped
Author: Chris Jones
-
-
The most interesting bluegrass accessories of 2017
With the recent news in Bluegrass Today that a capo has been developed that doubles as an electronic tuner (unless that’s a tuner which doubles as a capo), I was reminded that I haven’t yet compiled the annual review of
-
Top 5 Boring Bluegrass Stories of 2017
Happy New Year! This is the time of year when lists flourish and proliferate. If you’re in a much more lucrative career than I am, and you have money to invest, you might consider buying stock in any company specializing
-
This is the first hour of the rest of your life
Peter Thompson, noted California bluegrass D.J. and former concert organizer, recently e-mailed out a copy of Woody Guthrie’s New Years resolutions from 1942, which Woody called “New Years Rulins.” It was a long list, with 33 items on it, and had
-
Mr. Bluegrass Manners – Christmas Edition
Welcome to our first annual Mr. Bluegrass Manners - Christmas Edition. Mr. Bluegrass Manners has taken time out of his busy holiday schedule (being well-mannered is very time-consuming this time of year) to field some Christmas-related questions from readers. Most
-
Once again ’round the old town, or Stave Two in the night
’Tis the busy season, and I’m doing lots of SiriusXM fill-in work this week, so I’m going to pull one out of the archives. I just recently saw a fine production of A Christmas Carol by the Citadel Theatre in
-
Help a brother out during the holidays
At some point in the holiday season, somewhere between attending school Christmas concerts and swilling egg nog at some other social get together, some choose to make annual charitable donations. There are a few reasons for doing this in December,
-
Siri, what can I expect backstage?
One of the most important cliche phrases of “the teens” (2013 - present), aside from “drink the Kool-aid,” “going forward,” and, from the world of television news: “at the end of the day,” is “there’s an app for that.” We
-
Christmas music before Thanksgiving
This being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, you would naturally be expecting a Thanksgiving-y column, perhaps a list of bluegrass things to be thankful for, e.g. “I’m thankful for my Blue Chip TPR 45,” or “I’m thankful for Jimmy Martin’s lead
-
Band name cleanup on aisle six!
We return this week to one of my favorite subjects: band names. It’s probably in my top five, ranked somewhere between dairy cow breeds and bluegrass festival signage. When new bands are formed, a lot of agonizing takes place among the


