Opinion / Humor

This has been a week that I know a lot of you have faced already: having to put a loved one into hospice care and then watch as—in my case, my mother—slowly, quickly passed away from us. Alpha Mell Stanley Stuart

If this week’s column seems at all disjointed, it’s only because The Night Drivers and I are in the studio all this week, and I’m writing this in between takes of our new medley of Next Sunday Darling is My

Today is Cyber Monday, the day that robots everywhere break Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and take over the world. But while that’s happening, let’s shop! You may have already done your shopping on Black Friday (which started this year

While we count our many blessings, I want to take a couple of minutes to note some of the things I’m thankful for in the bluegrass world. For starters, I’m grateful that folks like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs

It seems that I have again stirred up a firestorm of controversy with the last two or three columns about certain kinds of private engagements. I guess if I’m honest it’s more of a smoldering campfire of controversy than a

This is Blue Yodel #53, the same number of times that local bluegrass band The Remington Riders of Free Dirt, Texas, played their signature song, Remington Ride, at a wedding on November 19, 1995. It was band policy to play

It occurred to me that while I was sounding off about types of gigs that bluegrass bands should avoid, I was perhaps giving the impression I was trying to exclude whole categories of work for a bluegrass band, with no

After my recent column about bar gigs, I suggested that, though we all enjoy complaining about them, they’re still worthwhile venues for certain kinds of bands. But are there other kinds of gigs that bluegrass bands sometimes play that they really

This is Blue Yodel #52, the same as the world-record number of strings broken by the band High Wind Advisory the night of December 5, 1983 in Delphi Plains, Ohio, when they attempted a bluegrass version of the rock opera, Tommy. I

I wasn’t really expecting this, but last week’s column about playing in bars prompted an unusual amount of emails and questions on the subject. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but having done my share of bar gigs in