Upon realizing that this year marks the 30th anniversary of Merlefest, and knowing that this fest provided significant inspiration for us here at Americana Rhythm, I felt it only fitting to give an extra shout out to this phenomenal music festival. Created as a tribute by Doc Watson and Wilkes Community College to his late son, Merle, Merlefest has become ...

Some 10 or 12 years ago, I accompanied my son to a music festival in North Carolina to help him staff a trade booth for a magazine for which he worked at the time. We joined 70,000 music fans for four days of string-music greatness of a type that is now known to many as Americana. That experience led to ...

Back in 2004, while attending Merlefest, I had the idea for creating Americana Rhythm Music Magazine. One of the artists performing that weekend was a guy named Jim Lauderdale. He was (and is) an integral part of that fabulous event; and I remember thinking that if there was any one guy that exemplified the definition of an Americana artist, it ...

Founded in 1988 in memory of Eddy Merle Watson, son of the legendary Doc Watson, MerleFest has been a major fundraiser for Wilkes Community College, and a tremendous celebration of traditional plus music, as Doc always called it. “When Merle and I started out we called our music traditional plus, meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever ...