Bluegrass Jam Along

My guest this week is Alister Atkin of Atkin Guitars. I've been following Atkin's progress for a few years now and have been blown away by the quality of guitars they're producing. They combine some cutting edge techniques with a bespoke approach, to bring out the uniqueness of every guitar they make. As Alister puts it: 'We're all about getting the feel and the sound of t...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and Announcements (Church Street News) IBMA award nominees Releases (The Grass is New) David Grisman & the Rounder Album Band - Live at Grass Valley The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Other bits Sign...

Last week we lost Happy Traum, one of the shining lights of acoustic music for over half a century. It’s hard to fully grasp, in our online world where everything is right there whenever we need it, just what an enormous contribution Happy and the Homespun team made to helping people learn roots and acoustic music. I was lucky enough to get to chat to Happy a couple of times for the podcast, and h...

My guest this week is Roger Siminoff. Not only is Roger an authority on instrument making, the physics of music and tap tuning, he's also an expert on the life and work of Lloyd Loar. Loar worked at Gibson in the early 1920s and oversaw the production of some truly remarkable, game changing instruments - most notably the F5 mandolin, which went on to become an integral part of bluegrass music...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and Announcements (Church Street News) IBMA Black String Band Symposium Volunteer at IBMA Email volunteer@ibma.org for more info Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Bu...

My guest on the podcast this week is Chris Eldridge, guitarist with Punch Brothers and Mighty Poplar. Chris is not only one of my favourite guitarists, he's also one of my favourite people I've had on as a guest, so I'm delighted to welcome him back to Bluegrass Jam Along to celebrate the podcast's 400th episode. In this special episode we're chatting about Bela Fleck&apos...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Podcast News  Gabe Witcher interview Brittany Haas interview Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Buddy Fretboard Summit IBMA Bluegrass Ramble Other bits Sign up for emails...

My guest on the podcast this week is Brittany Haas, fiddle player with Hawktail and, now, Punch Brothers! I interviewed Gabe Witcher last June, a few days after he played his final shows with Punch Brothers at Telluride. Almost exactly a year later to the day I spoke with Brittany to chat about joining the band as his replacement. Brittany had just played with Punch Brothers at Telluride, so there...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and announcements - Church Street News  IBMA International Booth info  Contact Christopher Howard Williams (IBMA board member) via the contact form on the Bluegrass in La Roche website Nice Like That Kickstart...

My guests this week are Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer. They join me to talk about a very special series of concerts they've curated called Bluegrass on Hudson, which are happening at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, in New York's Hudson Valley. But we start by talking about a wonderful documentary they directed and produced called Bluegrass Journey. It's a...

My guest this week is Tony Trischka, who returns to Bluegrass Jam Along to chat about his superb new record Earl Jam . We talk about  Tony receiving a thumb drive containing 200 unheard recordings of Earl Scruggs jamming with John Hartford, and his amazement at not just how many tunes were on there that he'd never heard Earl play, but also hearing Earl play in different styles and tunings too...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and announcements - Church Street News  Peghead Nation - Weekly Mandolin Workout Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Buddy Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton at Blue Ridge...

Today - June 8th - is Tony Rice's birthday. To celebrate, I'm reposting the chat I had with Alison Krauss as part of the 'Church Street Blues' 40th anniversary celebrations last year. The final episodes ended up being almost 5 hours long, so I thought it would be fun to re-post this as a standalone episode for those who missed it (or just want to listen again to celebrate Tony&...

My guest this week is Jacob Jolliff, who joins me to talk about his wonderful new record Instrumentals 2: Mandolin Mysteries We talk about the process of writing the record and how many of the tunes began on piano rather than mandolin, plus the great band Jacob assembled to record and tour the album. We also chat about what it was like to sit in with Bela Fleck for part of the My Bluegrass Heart t...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and announcements - Church Street News  IBMA international stage Fisher Center’s Bluegrass on Hudson 2024 Series Releases (The Grass is New) David Grisman’s Unexpurgated Grass The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 pl...

My guest this week is Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, who returns to chat about her great new record 'I Built a World', which comes out on Friday May 24th. This is Bronwyn's first record as a lead singer and we chat about her song choices, the musicians she chose for the record, the wonderful line up of backing singers she has and how the record came together. We also talk about the journey Br...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and announcements - Church Street News  Blue Ridge Music Center Summer Series Blue Highway Fest IBMA tickets Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Buddy Billy Strings Ma...

My guest this week is Oliver Burkeman, best-selling author of the book 'Four Thousand Weeks - Time Management for Mortals.' 'Four Thousand Weeks' isn't a book about bluegrass, or American acoustic music...or even about music. But, it addresses so many of the the things that can trip us up and stop us from making the space in our lives for the things we love, like music. I&...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Podcast news Dave Sinko interview News and announcements - Church Street News  North Carolina Guitar Celebration Telluride Lineup Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Other bits Sign...

My guest this week is legendary sound engineer Dave Sinko. Dave joins me to talk about his 17 year collaboration with Punch Brothers, including running their live sound, from using mics and pickups on every instrument, right down to single mic shows (and most points in between). We also chatted about Dave's long standing collaboration with Edgar Meyer, recording some of the most influential r...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode News and announcements - Church Street News  IBMA Industry Awards My recent interview with Jim Mills Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Other bits Sign up for emails https://bluegras...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode News and announcements - Church Street News  Church Street Blues reissue Church Street Blues 40th Anniversary Episode part 1 Church Street Blues 40th Anniversary Episode part 2 Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass...

My guest this week is Stephen Mougin, guitarist in The Sam Bush Band and founder of Dark Shadow Recording. In this episode we talk about Stephen's work as a band coach. We chat about his training as a vocal teacher, what bands should be working on, including how they should be rehearsing, why preparing for the studio isn't really all that different from preparing to play live and how to...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News and announcements - Church Street News  Library of Congress list Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Buddy Billy Strings a capella quertet Jacob Jolliff Vera performan...

**This interview was originally posted in September 2022** My guest this week is Kristina R. Gaddy, who joins us to discuss her fascinating  book “Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History”. We chat about how she came to write the book and some of the key discoveries she made along the way, in particular the banjo’s unknown history as an instrument of ritual and rebellion. Kristina...