Category Archives: History
Kernville CA: Whiskey Flat Days Fiddle Contest!
“A friend in Los Angeles told me about a fiddle contest being staged near the end of February in the mountain region known as Kernville, up highway 178 from Bakersfield CA. Always seeking the music, I decided to drive up there to record the event on tape if I could get permission.” Continue reading
The Folk Music Revival (Monterey, CA 1963)
“I always wanted to play different from anybody else . . . and it turned out to be bluegrass music.”
-Bill Monroe,
Monterey California, May 18, 1963 Continue reading
Musical Meetings: Rocky Adamson
Rocky Adamson, town constable of Dayton NV, recorded at Sutro Saloon in 1967. Continue reading
Eck Robertson, Texas Fiddler, and “Sallie Gooden”
“He had a leather strap around his neck attached to the end pin of the instrument. He spoke of fiddling and occasionally, would raise the instrument to playing position and run his bow across the strings to make a point. His frailty vanished as soon as he laid that bow to the strings: there was the Eck I knew from his recordings! ” Continue reading
Bluegrass: Country Soul
1971 was a banner year for bluegrass music. It had come of age the decade before, following its invention as a musical style by Bill Monroe in the mid-1940s. Little known, except by country music fans for its first twenty … Continue reading