There is a pastry shop in the next town over from where I live. Whenever they pull a fresh tray of donuts from their oven, they light a little sign in their window that reads, “Hot and Ready”. That sign came to my mind recently when I visited the dance tent at Merlefest in Wilksboro, NC. At that tent, I ...

Did you ever enjoy something so much that you wanted it to never end? That is the way an Americana string music festival affects me. The season is just getting started for us here at Americana Rhythm and as I return to earth from my trip to Merlefest a month or so ago, I am already itching in anticipation for ...

Did you ever ponder the origin of things and wonder why some things, although quite similar, have small differences. No? That probably is a good thing because I have this worrisome habit, and it troubles me sleepless sometimes. Let me tell you about my latest quixotic quest and the particular windmill involved. As a child of the 40s and 50s, ...

The year 2020 has not been kind to small business. The pandemic has imposed true hardships on the small business community. From our prospective here at AR, none seem to have been hit harder that the music business. Local music stores seem especially vulnerable. Some weeks ago, several of us from AR were spending a few days on North Carolina’s ...

We are believers in live music and are cheerleaders for the venues in which live music is taught and performed. And we believe that local encouragement of live musical engagement is vitally important. We recently began seeing posts on our social media outlets regarding activities at a music school and performance venue in nearby Charlottesville, VA named The Front Porch. ...

A plectrum can be a thin flat piece of slightly flexible material held by or worn on the fingers and used to pluck or strum stringed musical instruments The plectrum is often called a pick or flat pick if used by a player to produce individual notes. Players of string-music know that there are many types of picks that will ...

When the poet said, “No man is an island,” I believe he meant that while our efforts lead to our successes in life, those successes are attained with the help of others. Recently this fact was brought home to us with the hearing of a story that took place during the early days of recorded country music. With that tease, ...

Recently, we here at the magazine became aware of a press release from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). This press release announced the up-coming airing of a new Ken Burns documentary film titled Country Music. This new film consists of eight two-hour episodes and will air on PBS stations this fall. According to the PBS press release, the film Country ...

Pres·er·va·tion (prezYrÈvâSH(Y)n): The action of preserving something or the state of being preserved, especially to a specified degree. The action that one takes for preservation means different things to different folks depending upon the subject one is pondering. The subject of preserving this mountain sourced, string music that we now call Americana came up among a few of us after ...

Every since Uncle Dave and Aunt Betty left their front porch and took their Guitar and Fiddle up on the stage at the local high school auditorium, there has been a need to electrically amplify the performer’s picking and singing. Almost any audio amplifier will work as a public address system and drive a garden variety loud speaker with enough ...