Preserving The Tradition of Bluegrass Into The Future

Have another helping of Irish stew or corned beef and cabbage. Wash it down with a pint of Guinness, green food coloring optional. Then continue your Saint Patrick’s Day celebration by listening to traditional Irish tunes.More than a few should sound familiar to Bluegrass fans. When it comes to influences on American music, the Grass literally is greener because of contributions from the Emerald Isle. First came the fiddle, easier than most instruments to take on board ship a

In a moment when most young musicians are learning through screens—isolated, headphone-deep, and algorithm-directed—the work of the Ozark Mountain Music Association feels almost countercultural. Here, music is taught face-to-face. Instruments are acoustic. Learning happens in rooms, on porches, and on courthouse squares. And the goal isn’t virality—it’s continuity. “We are event-oriented,” said Wendy Wright, executive director of the Ozark Mountain Music Association. “Most

She’s one of the most respected voices in Bluegrass and Americana, yet Dale Ann Bradley is as down-to-earth as your next-door neighbor. From her home in Middlesboro, Kentucky, in the same county where she grew up, Dale Ann walks a line between two worlds. One is the familiar place of her childhood, and the other is on stage in front of her adoring fans. She’s equally at home in either place. Dale Ann got her first guitar when she was 14, and she began singing in front of liv

Sara Bradley, the acclaimed chef behind Freight House in Paducah, Kentucky, has become one of the most recognizable culinary voices to emerge from the region in recent years. Raised in Paducah, Bradley grew up surrounded by family traditions that blended her Jewish maternal heritage with her father’s Appalachian background. This upbringing instilled in her an appreciation for seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, and the resourcefulness that defines Appalachian cooking.

Lathemtown, a small, unincorporated community in North Georgia, is the kind of place where cows outnumber streetlights, and where people grow up knowing every neighbor by name. This is the place that shaped singer-songwriter Kurt Lee Wheeler — first as the son of a cattleman and homemaker, then as a musician who would one day return to its soil in search of the stories he left behind. When Wheeler talks about his hometown, his voice settles into an easy rhythm, the kind th

No conversation about today's preservationists of Appalachian string band music would be complete unless it included the music and work of Fiddlin' Earl White. Well-respected as both an educator and a storyteller, White, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, started his music career dancing as a co-founder of the Green Grass Cloggers while still in college studying psychology. He’s happy to share the story. “I hooked up with some people at East Carolina University who were

Shelby Means is comfortable performing. That comes from nearly eight years playing bass and singing harmony with the bands Della Mae and Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. But now she’s center stage and in charge as she leads her own band after the release of her first album, simply called Shelby Means . Shelby with Della Mae: Shelby with Molly Tuttle: “There's a lot more responsibility in fronting my own band,” says Means. “But the more comfortable I can be on stage,

Long before he was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Jerry Douglas was a little boy surrounded by music in his hometown of Warren, Ohio. “My father was from West Virginia and worked in the steel mills in Ohio, and he and some of his co-workers had a band (the West Virginia Travelers) that easily could have gone professional,” Jerry says. “They played in local beer joints, but their main focus was their work at the mills.” Like many kids, Jerry says he plun

In a world grappling with artificial intelligence and smartphones, the genre-defying Damn Tall Buildings would like to remind us that we are living, breathing human beings. Both their latest self-produced album (released in October 2025), and its title track, “The Universe Is Hungry”— equipped with joyous harmony and front-porch playing chops — invite us to look beyond the virtual veil. VIDEO: “The Universe Is Hungry,” Damn Tall Buildings Injecting levity into their mus

Donna Ulisse spent 25 years on Music Row in Nashville, where, she says, writers were kings. Now Donna’s in a position to make other writers feel that same sense of importance with her newly formed publishing company, Tall Oaks Music. “When I signed with Turnberry Records, owner Keith Barnacastle told me to dream as big as I wanted to dream,” she says. “I mentioned to him that there was no publishing company under his umbrella, which is something I had always dreamed of

At the Mentone Fall Festival last October, exuberant Bluegrass melodies floated on the mountain breeze. When not browsing the colorful artist’s booths, visitors to the festival made their way to an outdoor amphitheater with dogs and small children in tow. Three on a String was on stage, and their audience knew they were listening to something special. Few bands or friendships last fifty-four years, but this is what the talented men behind one of Alabama’s most cherished Blueg