In recent weeks I have seen a lot of great bluegrass performers honored in their craft and sharing their talents with enthusiastic audiences. This adventure in musical joy began with the Front Porch Fellowship Bluegrass Gospel Music Awards held at the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, Ky.
Bluegrass gospel music filled the Freedom Hall Expo Center in Louisville, Ky. for over two hours before the annual 2010 National Quartet Convention turned its focus on one of the leading political figures since 2008 – Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The former Republican candidate for United States vice president stood before thousands of gospel […]
Have you ever taken your shoes to be worked on? Does anyone do that anymore? I remember when fixin’ shoes was cheaper than buyin’. Of course, back then they were quality made and lasted a long time if cared for properly. I’ve been looking for a brand new pair of blacks and a brown for […]
Hearing good four-part harmony is something that has always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Ever since the days when the sounds of “The Gospel Singing Jubilee” helped me energize sleep out of my pre-school eyes as we got ready to go to church, Southern gospel music has been part […]
I have heard Jesse McReynolds called the iron man of bluegrass. He is certainly one of the strongest and most innovative musical talents that I have ever known. From the first time as a youth that I looked up on the stage of the Lavonia Bluegrass Festival at he and his late brother Jim, I […]
One of the more interesting characters I have met in my life is my second cousin twice-removed Rufus A. Doolittle. No matter how many times the family removed him he just kept coming back. If you meet Rufus on the street, he will always have on his old blue Bibb overalls covering nearly 300 pounds […]
When considering the monumental shows of television, one of these would have to be the series “M.A.S.H.” starring Alan Alda and a cast of hilarious character actors who seem to face an endless stream of war-time horrors with levity and courage. I remember sitting with 130 million other Americans on February 28, 1983 as the […]
Have you ever known need? Have you ever been hungry and not known where your next meal is coming from? While I have been blessed not to know this sense of desperation, I have seen the face of despair in many and heard stories of desperation from years past. I was recently standing at a […]
Some say it was a coal mine cave-in. Others say it was the fever, but whatever the reason my Grandpa Harve found himself orphaned in a time when if children were lucky some relative or caring neighbor took them in. I don’t know much about his childhood, although I am told his tales of life […]
I was out watering the yard a while back when a blonde headed boy rolled up on his blue mountain bike and asked if we needed our yard mowed. Our yard had just been covered with a brand new batch of fescue sod. I told the boy it was not ready to cut just yet […]
