Articles
(Click Titles to read Article)
Vern Williams
Vern Williams was one of the top bluegrass musicians ever to play the music. His singing ranks with the best, and for years he fronted the Vern Williams Band before his death in 2006.
Harley Bray
Harley Bray was a near legendary member of the 1960s Bray Brothers & Red Cravens and fellow band member in the 1980s Friends of Sally Johnson. This interview was conducted in 1984.
Cypress Island
Cypress Island is in the San Juan Islands and not accessible by ferry. We jumped on a private charter and were deposited on a beach. From there we hiked six miles to another beach where we were picked up.
Grand Canyon/Bryce/Zion
In 1999 Jen and I traveled the "Grand Loop," a 900 mile adventure out of Las Vegas with stops at Grand Canyon, Bryce, and Zion National Parks.
Dave Jack's Saturna
The late Dave Jack was a boat builder and feisty raconteur who lived on Saturna Island, in the Canadian Gulf Islands. I interviewed him at his home in 1988.
Darrington Bluegrass Festival
The Darrington Bluegrass Festival started in the 1970s and is still going strong. In the mid 80s I spoke with organizers, all originally from North Carolina, about the success of the festival and its plans for the future.
Roland White & the Kentucky Colonels
Roland White has had a long career in bluegrass music, beginning in the 1960s with the Kentucky Colonels. Since then he has played with Bill Monroe; Lester Flatt; the Country Gazette; and the Nashville Bluegrass Band.
Wolf Mountain Bluegrass Festival
The Wolf Mountain Bluegrass Festival featured traditional bluegrass music for a number of years at the same site as the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival.
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Ralph Stanley
The late Ralph Stanley is one of the main pioneers of Bluegrass (though he preferred to call it "Oldtime Mountain Music.)" I interviewed him in Seattle in 1985.
Jack Cooke
Jack Cooke was a longtime member of Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys. The consummate sideman Jack was a terrific singer, bassist, and guitarist. He died in 2010.
Delia Bell and Bill Grant
Delia Bell was quite the rage among bluegrass fans when Emmylou Harris brought her to everyone's attention in the 1980s. Her partner, Bill Grant, was an excellent singer and songwriter in his own right.
Stuart Duncan
Stuart Duncan is one of the outstanding fiddlers ever to play bluegrass. A longtime member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, I interviewed him back in 1987.
Mark O'Connor
I first saw Mark O'Connor when he showed up as a prodigal 13-year old at the National Oldtime Fiddler's Contest in Weiser, Idaho.
Notes from Bluegrass Mecca
A review of the 2004 "World of Bluegrass" convention held in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Tennesseans
For many years Harley Worthington and Hank English, the Tennesseans, were a fixture in Northwest bluegrass.
By Train, Across Canada
This was the first free-lance article I wrote, in 1981, but never published. From British Columbia to Toronto. Service via this route no longer exists.
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George Draney: 82 Years in Bella Coola
George Draney was born in Bella Coola, in 1903 to Norwegian parents. He was a self-made man with conservative views. I interviewed him in 1985 for an article in Raincoast Chronicles.
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Northwest Folklife Festival
This article was written in 1986 about "growing pains" at Folklife. Now here we are, into its 5th decade as a thriving festival, and many of the same issues remain.
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Mount Saint Helens ~ Into the Crater
In 1989 I made the first of two trips by foot into the crater of Mount Saint Helens. This was less than 10 years after the initial blast that sent a plume of ash 80-thousand feet into the atmosphere and blanketing 11 states. I was invited on the hikes to help my friend John Pitlick, a geologist, who was doing some work with the Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. He and I had worked previously in Redwood National Park in the Fall and Winter of 1979-80. It was quite an adventure...as close to being on the moon as I will ever get.
It's a dusty, steep hike through open, unstable, canyons devoid of vegetation. The only colors we saw along the way were chartreuse and magenta algaes from a steaming, thermal river emanating from the volcano core. Once in the crater there were near constant landslides from the un-consolidated slopes around us, and the sight of the smoking lava dome forming near us was a little un-settling (not to mention the prospect of another eruption, some of which happened in coming years). From the dome we nonetheless managed to collect some (still warm) volcanic rocks -- newest on the planet! In such an environment you wouldn't expect to be stung by a wasp, but so it was, and one more bizarre aspect of this other-worldly environment.
Here are my images from that amazing adventure!
Please note that the hike is off limits to the public.
It's a dusty, steep hike through open, unstable, canyons devoid of vegetation. The only colors we saw along the way were chartreuse and magenta algaes from a steaming, thermal river emanating from the volcano core. Once in the crater there were near constant landslides from the un-consolidated slopes around us, and the sight of the smoking lava dome forming near us was a little un-settling (not to mention the prospect of another eruption, some of which happened in coming years). From the dome we nonetheless managed to collect some (still warm) volcanic rocks -- newest on the planet! In such an environment you wouldn't expect to be stung by a wasp, but so it was, and one more bizarre aspect of this other-worldly environment.
Here are my images from that amazing adventure!
Please note that the hike is off limits to the public.
Liner Notes
Here you will find liner notes I have written for CD releases.
Click on the Heading
Open Road
Open Road was a Colorado-based bluegrass band I first met in 2001. I was impressed with their strong traditionalism and stage presence. Later I wrote the liner notes for their Rounder Records recording In the Life. These are reproduced here.
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Bluegrass Brothers
The Bluegrass Brothers are a Virginia group I first me at IBMA. I was captivated by their pedal-to-the-metal traditional approach. My friend, Kerry Hay, of Hay Holler Records asked me to write liner notes for a release he was planning of the group. I quickly accepted.
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Sawtooth Mountain Boys
The Sawtooth Mountain Boys are a Corvallis, Oregon group who existed from the mid-1960s up until about 2005--four decades--with little change in personnel. A traditional group, they have performed throughout the Northwest and are well-known on the festival circuit.
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Ohop Valley Boys
The Ohop Valley Boys were a Northwest bluegrass group that performed for about a decade at many of the regional festivals. They are a group who took a modern approach to traditional bluegrass.
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Resophonics Anonymous
Resophonics Anonymous is a compilation of music from the instrument more commonly known as the "Dobro." These are Northwest dobroists performing a wide of variety of music and styles. It was put together by Washington resophonic musician Tab Tabscott.
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