Preserving The Tradition of Bluegrass Into The Future

Before he was old enough to drive, Alan O’Bryant bought a banjo from the Leonard Stadler’s Music Store in Reidsville, North Carolina. Leonard was a steel guitar builder, and he always had people pickin’ in his store. Alan did a little pickin’ there, and Leonard and Bobby Adkins asked if he’d like to play with them at the Thunderbird Club, a dance hall in Virginia. “It was my first road gig,” laughs Alan. “On the way home, we stopped to eat, and Allen Mills, who played bass th

When it comes to music, it seems as if The Little Mercies do not see boundaries. This trio of young instrumentalists sets no firm genre limits. While what they do is primarily roots, it springs forth from various cultural and musical traditions. Folk. Bluegrass. Reggae. Jazz. You’ll hear hints of these elements, and more. Hailing from Tallahassee, Florida, the trio includes Bronwyn Chelette, Shanice Richards and Rosalee Walsh. Their varied backgrounds bring life to a mixed-r

Liam Purcell wants listeners to feel something when they hear his music. Since forming Cane Mill Road in 2014, the Deep Gap, North Carolina, native and Berklee College of Music graduate is steadily becoming one of bluegrass’s most promising young songwriters, producers, and bandleaders—all without turning his back on his musical roots. “If I can get people to come along on a journey with me in a song, that’s the absolute goal,” says Purcell. Purcell views bluegrass not as a s

Bluegrass has always reached beyond its own borders. Spend enough time around festivals, musicians, record labels, radio shows, or campground jams, and you start to notice certain artists, bands, and cultural touchstones that have unusually strong followings among bluegrass people — even when they exist well outside the genre. That is the idea behind “Why Do Bluegrass Folks Love…?”, a new recurring column in The Bluegrass Standard. Each installment will take one of those shar

For musician and show host Martha Bassett, putting out great content isn’t just about a love for music; it’s also about a feeling of extended family. As founder and host of The Martha Basset Show, she seeks to keep roots genres thriving. She brings people together to celebrate music that’s genuine and real; it’s a carefully curated listening space. She also provides a means for her extended family of far-away listeners to feel like they’re right there in the room. The live

While Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a hotbed for bluegrass music, Soraya and Luciya Sullivan grew up in a home filled with the music of classical saxophones. “Both of our parents are very musical,” says Soraya. “But they don’t play bluegrass music at all, even though my mom once tried playing the banjo.” Because Winston-Salem has such a strong bluegrass scene, Soraya and Luciya were exposed to the genre early on, and they liked what they heard. “The older kids played it,

THANKS BE FOR BLUEGRASS SONGS It was more years ago than I care to recall, but I still remember my first “pitch to publishers” night in Nashville. My sweaty hands gripped the lyric sheet wrapped around a state-of-the-art cassette tape. I joined other aspiring writers crowded into a conference room. A middle-aged publisher wearing a golf shirt and jeans sat behind a table that was weighed down by a massive black boombox. After brief introductions, we passed in our tapes and wa

“Go west, young man, and seek your fortune,” as the famous nineteenth-century saying goes. In that pioneering spirit, banjo luthier Tom Nechville left his factory in Minnesota and moved to Sisters, Oregon—a move that led him to foster a bluegrass scene through his shop, Nechville’s Banjos West. "My dad was an Oregonian,” says Nechville. “If you read my high school yearbook, my plan even back then was to move out West.” “It took me until I was in my sixties to finally do it,

Twenty-some years later, Hayes Griffin still has the pick. “It's a Dunlop Altex. It's like the kind of teardrop shaped ones. I had a memento box when I was a kid, and it had all this stuff my grandma gave me, like some arrowheads she found on her farm. And I put that pick in there.” The flatpicking guitar virtuoso Beppe Gambetta was at a music store in Heath, Ohio, to do a workshop on behalf of Taylor Guitars. Griffin was an impressionable youngster who hung out the

Mike Willner got some advice in 2024 when he retired after a career fighting anti-money laundering for a global financial institution. “My wife, Ruth, said, ‘You better find something to do because you're going to drive me crazy, and you're going to drive you crazy,’” Willner remembers. A lifelong musician whose first instrument was the bassoon, Willner had only recently discovered bluegrass music. “I was quite struck by how much bluegrass activity there was and resources

The Wee Farm just got a buzz cut this afternoon, and the John Deere barber who lives down our country road did an outstanding job! Three times a year we let a farmer neighbor use our back 7 acres to grow and process hay for his cows and horses. Farmer Rick (my husband) and The Goat Girl Gone Cat Crazy (me) stand on our back patio like we’re at the drive-in theater, mesmerized by the whole thing. We stand out there for a whole hour or better watching him roll that tractor up a