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| Music Articles All Articles and photos (unless noted), Copyright Barry Brower In the 1980s I began writing freelance pieces for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine. This publication has been the major source of information about bluegrass music since the 1960s and still is today. In addition, I have written some pieces for the Seattle Weekly and various newsletters over the years. Along the way I composed some Liner Notes for several bluegrass bands and others. Feel free to take anything you see here for your own personal use, but please, these are copyrighted. Thanks! is a report, published in Bluegrass Unlimited, about the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) World of Bluegrass held annually, that year in Louisville, Kentucky, now in Nashville, Tennessee. I have been attending this event every year since 1996. a true legend in bluegrass music, Ralph is perhaps one of the five most influential musicians to ever play the music. You may recognize him from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? His is the eerie, deep-mountain-soulful voice you heard singing O Death. He began his bluegrass career in 1946 and still continues today. I conducted this 1987 interview at the home of Sharon Bennett in Seattle. is a Seattle-area native, one of the most successful musicians this area has ever produced. A childhood fiddle prodigy I spoke with him in 1992, and the piece includes a followup interview with his first fiddle teacher, John Burke. is the consumate bluegrass fiddler, one of the great talents that young fiddlers aspire to emulate. His work with the Nashville Bluegrass Band is legendary but I'll bet you can find his credits somewhere in your music collection, even if you don't have a single bluegrass recording. is a now-defunct festival that was held for years at the Grass Valley, California fairgrounds, same site as the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival. Wolf Mountain was a much smaller, more traditional event that often spotlighted some of the outstanding, up-and-coming young bands. I went there in 1996 and wrote this piece for Bluegrass Unlimited. In 2001 I visited the same festival and ended up doing liner notes for Open Road, a succesful young band who appeared there. was perhaps one of the best traditional singers ever to perform bluegrass. Vern made a name for himself in the 1960s with his partner Ray Park, as Vern & Ray. Later he formed the Vern Williams Band and pretty much dominated traditional bluegrass music in the 1980s and 90s on the West Coast. Possessed of a keening, Arkansas tenor voice his music was a model of musicianship and good taste. I conducted this interview in 1984. was also a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, a superb mandolinist whose most famous connection is perhaps with his legendary guitarist brother, Clarence White, and the band they played with for years, the Kentucky Colonels. are a wonderful bluegrass duet from Oklahoma. They were very popular in the 1980s when this article was written for Bluegrass Unlimited. Delia was "discovered" by Country music star Emmylou Harris and achieved some measure of notoriety herself with a subsequent major label (Warner Brothers) recording, produced by Emmylou. But, in my mind, Bill Grant is every bit as talented a singer as Delia and an excellent songwriter to boot. Until his death in 2010 Jack was the longtime bassist with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. The band was in Seattle in 1986 for a performance and he agreed to an interview. So few of the fine musicians ("sidemen") who labor in obscurity ever get much attention and I felt it was due for this man who has been so integral to the sound of the Clinch Mountain Boys. is a 1985 article that appeared in Bluegrass Unlimited and the Seattle Weekly. It focuses on the isolated "Tarheel" community of Darrington, in Washington's North Cascade mountains. A large number of the town's residents are from North Carolina who came to Darrington in the 1940s to log the giant cedars, firs, hemlocks, and spruces. Of course they brought along their music as well and in 1976 started the Darrington Bluegrass Festival, an annual event which is still happening. This is the story of some of the folks who made this all happen. is a 1984 interview I conducted with the banjoist. Harley was a member of Red Cravens and the Bray Brothers (aka The Bluegrass Gentlemen), who had a major label bluegrass release in the 1960s (unusual for that era) and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry. His brother, the late Nate Bray, is a legend among mandolin pickers. were a Washington State bluegrass band that played throughout the 1970s and early '80s. Founded by transplanted Tennesseans Hank English and Harley Worthington, the group was a training ground for many young Washington bluegrass musicians. It was Mark O'Connor's first band, and also included noted fiddler Barbara Lamb. was a Colorado-based band I met at the Wolf Mountain Bluegrass Festival about 2000. It was a young band with a strong traditional bent to their music featuring lead singer Bradford Lee Folk, a charismatic singer and superb songwriter. We became fast friends and a few years later I was asked to write their liner notes. These are the notes from that release on Rounder Records, In the Life. | |
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