Bobby Hicks passes
Bobby Hicks with a fiddle he bought from Birch Monroe – photo © Lincoln Hensley Fiddler Bobby Hicks, surely among the most celebrated and enduring musicians to ever play bluegrass music, has died from complications of heart disease. After suffering a heart attack on Saturday (8/10), he underwent surgery to install a pacemaker yesterday, and […]
Jake Workman has a new baby boy
Jake Workman (lead guitarist with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder) and his wife, Rebekah, also a talented bluegrass musician, welcomed their third child, Aaron Abram Workman, into their fold at 11:14 am MST on Saturday, May 18. He joins siblings: Isaac (age 3) and Elizabeth (age 1). All are doing well. Workman said, “My third […]
Ricky Skaggs returns to Camp Springs for Tony Rice Memorial Music Fest
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder at the Tony Rice Memorial Music Fest – photo © G. Nicholas Hancock History repeated itself this Memorial Day weekend at Camp Springs Bluegrass Park near Reidsville, NC, as Ricky Skaggs took the stage for the second annual Tony Rice Memorial Music Fest on Saturday. Camp Springs was the first […]
J. D. Crowe & the New South (ROU 0044) selected by the Library of Congress
J.D. Crowe & The New South, often best known to bluegrass lovers by its catalog number, Rounder 0044, has been chosen for by the Library of Congress to be among the 25 commercial audio recordings to go into their National Recording Registry in 2024. This listing ensures that these recordings are to be preserved in […]
Russ Carson in the pink after hand surgery
No… that’s not a stigmata on Russ Carson’s right hand. The crackerjack banjo picker with Ricky Skaggs is just off a full month of banjo rest following carpal tunnel surgery. This inflammatory disorder has afflicted a number of banjo players. It arises when the tendons which run through the carpal tunnel in your wrist become […]
Sixteen Tons from Clay Hess
Bluegrass super picker and bandleader Clay Hess has a new single to share this week, his cut of the Merle Travis classic, Sixteen Tons. This hard core coal mining song was first recored by Travis in 1946, though it was Tennessee Ernie Ford’s record with it in 1955 that made it familiar to country radio […]
Online guitar workshop with Jake Workman
Jake Workman with Ricky Skaggs at the 2023 Bloomin’ Bluegrass Festival – photo by Nate Dalzell Jake Workman, the superb flatpick guitarist with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, will be offering a four-week online course on bluegrass guitar next month through Nashville Acoustic Camps. The workshops will run on Monday evenings at 8:30 p.m. (EST) […]
Ricky Skaggs Christmas tour next month
OK… we’ve held off as long as we could, but the time of bluegrass Christmas music is upon us. We know that many people get annoyed by holiday music this early in the year, but artists want to make sure to let everyone know about their new music, or special Christmas concerts, far enough in […]
Darin & Brooke win AGM bluegrass award in a tie with Ricky Skaggs
Brian Smith, Brooke Aldridge, Darin Aldridge, and Jerry Salley at the 2023 AGM Awards Darin & Brooke Aldridge were honored to accept the Bluegrass Artist of the Year Award on April 18 at the 22nd Absolutely Gospel Awards in a rare tie vote with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder. The Aldridges also performed on the […]
When I’m Gone at the Jettie Baker Center
There have been plenty of events in bluegrass music history that live on as legendary, even magical, moments when the genre was changed forever. From Earl Scruggs’s debut at the Opry as a Blue Grass Boy to Carlton Haney’s first bluegrass festivals, many of these events have been studied, written about, and analyzed in depth […]
