FrankCo Penn brings bluegrass back downtown in Waynesboro, Pa.

Waynesboro, Pa. Has long been bluegrass country. It’s the kind of place where you can walk into the local hardware store — Beck and Benedict’s —  and buy a vintage banjo, or at least you could until the age and the pandemic conspired to force Dick and Delia Boschert to close the store’s doors. We didn’t discover the hardware store jams until the business had moved to a new location, but the original location was[…]

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Mile Twelve is taking its fine Beantown bluegrass worldwide

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in The British Bluegrass News. The UK tour mentioned in the story actually got underway yesterday. It’s early January, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is enjoying a brief break in what has been a very busy schedule for her and her Mile Twelve bandmates when we catch up with her for a little chat about their plan for the new year. The band toured relentlessly in 2018, playing more than 100[…]

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For the Friends Who Make Up Songs From the Road Band, ‘The Stars Aligned’

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published in the British Bluegrass News — BBN85. From a distance, it seemed as if Charles Humphrey III was living a bluegrass musician’s dream. As the bassist, and one of the principal songwriters for the Steep Canyon Rangers, Humphrey was playing to bigger and bigger crowds, crowds fueled in part by the bands 15-plus years of touring and recording, both on their own and in association with Steve Martin.[…]

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Time for The Price Sisters to put those college degrees to work

This interview originally appeared in the British Bluegrass News, Issue No. 84. You can get the British Bluegrass News delivered to your door by joining the British Bluegrass Music Association. All photos courtesy The Price Sisters. It is not easy to tell the Price Sisters apart if you are not seeing them in person. In person you can distinguish the 23-year-old identical twins by their hair styles. Lauren Price wears her hair shorter, in a[…]

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You might say guitarist Chris Luquette is going places

Chris Luquette may not be a household name with bluegrass fans, but anybody who has seen the 27-year-old Seattle native pick a guitar will tell you that thought should include the word “yet.” The 2013 International Bluegrass Music Association Momentum Award winner tore it up at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival this weekend. A member of Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen since 2012, his blistering solos and adept interplay with Solivan on mandolin and banjoman Mike[…]

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A conversation with banjo pickin’ poet Danny Barnes

Prior to his show last night at Elk Creek Cafe & Aleworks, banjo picking poet Danny Barnes sat down with Brewgrass Chronicle editor Chris A. Courogen to talk about his music, his upcoming appearance at DelFest, where he will perform with David Grisman and Sam Grisman, his latest album, chatty audiences, and the story behind what is perhaps his best known song — Get it While You Can. Here is that conversation:

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No gifts, no gimmicks – Jakobs Ferry Stragglers use straight ahead approach to raise money for newest album

Like a lot of bands, the Jakobs Ferry Stragglers could use some help producing a new CD. Like a lot of bands, they used one of those go-fund-music type sites to raise capital for a previous project. Gary Antol has no idea how a lot of other bands feel about those sorts of fundraising campaigns, but he knows how he feels. “I did one of those two years ago for our second studio album. It[…]

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Boldly going where few tread, Infamous Stringdusters bridge gap between tradition and the future

Genuine. It’s a word Andy Falco uses a lot when you talk to him about the music he makes with The Infamous Stringdusters. “The most important thing we can do is just stay focused on making the music that’s the most genuine to us,” says Falco, who was on the phone from back home in Long Island, N.Y., where he was getting ready to depart for The Stringdusters’ appearance at the Strings and Sol in[…]

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Georgia’s The Barbaric Yawps are a 700 Miles of Hard Driving Bluegrass Band

You have to really love playing bluegrass to play a room like the Grotto Pub. It’s not that they don’t try. They have decent sound equipment, one of those little systems with an iPad app to control it. But the speakers are aimed askew, an effort, I am guessing, to reach the corners of the room, which is dominated by two big pillars that sit what you might think of as center stage, second row.[…]

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Like Ernie Banks, Jody Mosser says Let’s Play Two (or even three)

There is a certain synchronicity between the start of baseball spring training and what is going down Saturday night at the Abbey Bar in Harrisburg. Those ballplayers down in Florida, or out in Arizona, have an extremely busy summer ahead. Over the course of 187 days, they will play 162 games. That works out to 15 days off in roughly six months. Sure, they will get a couple more days off for rainouts, but the[…]

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