Bluegrass Jam Along

This week’s episode is all about learning to play music. I’ve been listening back to the interviews I’ve done over the past 3 years and so many of them touch on some really core stuff when it comes to being a musician. All of it has helped me at one point or another, so I thought I’d put together a compilation of some of my favourite bits.  There’s something in here for everyone, whether you’re ju...

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 World of Bluegrass info Collings Hill Country guitars Kruger Brothers Music Academy Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Scroll on Bud...

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 Interview episodes by category News and Announcements (Church Street News) Vasen & Hawtail Preorder link Tour dates Releases (The Grass is New) Andy Statman album Buy on Amazon The Grass is (mostly...

My guest this week is the legendary Jerry Douglas. Jerry joins me again to chat about recording his first new album in six years. It's called 'The Set' and features the band Jerry's been playing with for a decade now. He talks about what's special about playing with that band and why he chose to re-visit some tunes that will be familiar to his fans for this record, as well...

My guest this week is Fretboard Journal's Jason Verlinde. Jason shares the story of how Fretboard Journal started, back in 2005, and how it's grown from a print magazine to include a series of great podcasts and The Fretboard Summit events. We also chat about the current state of the acoustic instrument market and how the vintage market has changed over the past two decades, plus what pe...

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. This week, news of a brand new record by Daniel Patrick of the Mandolins and Beer podcast and a new flatpicking course from Grant Gordy on Peghead Nation. There's also new music from Stephen Mougin and Ned Luberecki, Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland, Sarah Jaros...

My guest this week is Rebecca Frazier. Rebecca was the first woman ever to appear on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and her band Hit & Run are the only band to win all three Rockygrass, Telluride, and SPBGMA Festival Band competitions. She joins me to chat about her new record Boarding Windows in Paradise . We talk about working with legendary producer and engineer Bill Wolf, recordi...

My guest this week is Becky Buller. Becky is the winner of 10 IBMA awards, including the 2016 awards for Fiddler and Female Vocalist. She's the first woman in the history of IBMA to receive the Fiddle Player of the Year award and the first person ever to win in both vocal and instrumental categories. She joins me to talk about her fabulous album and song cycle 'Jubilee'.  We talk ab...

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 Interview episodes by category News and Announcements (Church Street News) IBMA announcement Lessons With Marcel Molly Tuttle book Peghead Nation Folk and Bluegrass Songs for Fiddle Don’t forget the pr...

This week's episode is a Food For Thought episode. If you're not familiar with them, they're a series of short episodes on a single idea, designed to get you thinking and (hopefully) deepening your understanding of a particular music related area. This week we've got a simple idea from Dolly Parton - "Find out who you are and do it on purpose." So many of us think we...

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 news & info Releases (The Grass is New) The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist Other bits Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/ The Grass is...

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...