Opinion / Humor

An issue much on the minds of performing artists and songwriters these days is the rapid growth of streaming audio services like Pandora or Spotify, which offer targeted music streams designed to follow the tastes of individual listeners, but which

I was reminded recently by Ned Luberecki that I had once written a bluegrass haiku that went as follows: late in the evening Uncle Pen played the fiddle why did he do that? This led me to think that we were overdue for a

This little weekly bit of journalistic goofing-off has been my attempt at a humor/faux advice/anti-commentary column. Yes, I’ve attempted to be funny, and I’ll leave you to judge if, or when I’ve succeeded. This week, though, I’m not feeling all that

It’s time, as promised, for our annual Bluegrass Music General Knowledge Quiz (a registered trademark, all rights reserved, void in Louisiana and Hawaii and no one knows why). We all have friends who are trivia experts of some kind, like the

We were going to have the second form of quiz this week, the annual bluegrass general knowledge test, but first we need to deal with some other January business: the annual recap of the the most boring stories in bluegrass

This commentary is a contribution from four former members of the Board of Directors of the International Bluegrass Music Association. All four, Henri Deschamps, Craig Ferguson, Elizabeth Wightman, and Brian Smith, resigned from the Board following a dispute with the

Well, we’ve come to the end of the calendar year (my personal year came to an end in November), and what I usually like to do at this time of year, besides put on a silly party hat and hum

The following is a column which was originally posted last Christmas Day. You probably didn’t read it at the time. I know I didn’t. Since I managed to pound one out last Christmas Day, I decided I was entitled to take

There are lots of things we need to be careful of in the holiday season, like making sure we remember where we parked in a crowded shopping mall lot, or making sure not to leave gluten-free cookies out for Santa

Last week it was my birthday, which I spent flying from some place to some place else (I probably should have looked at the boarding pass). In any case, I’m here, but I’m celebrating my birthday late by taking the