Dave Jnr, Author at mygrassisblue.com

Kristy Cox | Ireland 2019, Days 1-3

Posted by Dave Jnr | May 21, 2019

“The first gig in a 300-year-old venue in the heart of Waterford City, Ireland’s oldest city famed worldwide for its glass manufacturing, followed by two gigs in rural County Cork. There were media duties in a radio station studio in Clonmel and time was found for a visit to a castle in Cahir, both in County Tipperary. Oh, and a stage was shared with a fellow visiting grasser.” It’s our media-heavy recap of days 1-3 of #KristyCoxIreland2019, our very first tour.”

Kristy Cox | May 2019

Posted by Dave Jnr | May 19, 2019

“Months of planning. Centuries-old church venues. Castle stays. Stunning scenery. Radio interviews. A Dingle lovein. And unexpected rendezvous with fellow touring grassers. A media-heavy recap of our 9-day, 9-gig #KristyCoxIreland2019 tour, Kristy’s inaugural tour of Ireland (and ours too).”

Shannonside Winter Music Festival 2019

Posted by Dave Jnr | January 20, 2019

“This 2019 iteration of the celebration of music that is the Shannonside Winter Music Festival had 80 events spread over 5 days covering 10 different musical genres… bluegrass was well catered for on the lineup, the Special Consensus, no strangers to the festival, the headline act. But until they rode into town for the established Sunday afternoon bluegrass concert, The Petersens and the Munich String Band ably held the keep…”

Special Consensus | Dublin, Ireland 2019

Posted by Dave Jnr | January 17, 2019

“Pulling from their extensive catalogue of material, the 2-hour-long intermission-interrupted set contained many a highlight: the harmonies; the a cappella Gospel numbers; and the instrumentals, especially the bass solos (who doesn’t love a good bass solo or two?) & instrumental-heavy encore, were all outstanding, or just as one might expect from this polished quartet.”

mygrassisblue.com On Bluegrass Today

Posted by Dave Jnr | January 13, 2019

“How neat. We’re featured in Bluegrass Today, meaning we’ve gone from reading about our favourite music on one of our favourite websites to reading about ourselves.”

Omagh Bluegrass Music Festival 2018

Posted by Dave Jnr | September 1, 2018

“Bluegrass Omagh. It’s probably the largest bluegrass festival on the island of Ireland and it has been running now for over a quarter of a century. The lineup for this year’s festival was just as impressive as the festival’s setting of the Ulster American Folk Park, the headline act of husband & wife combo Darin & Brooke Aldridge flown in just for the occasion. It was good to see and hear them again.”

Chris Jones & The Night Drivers | Dublin, Ireland 2018

Posted by Dave Jnr | March 8, 2018

“… the Beast from the East… did its upmost to disrupt the 2018 Ireland tour by Chris Jones And The Night Drivers. It forced the band, formed by Chris Jones in 1995, to ride out the worst of the unusually severe weather in Northern Ireland while wiping our some of the early shows of the 11 gigs originally scheduled.”

Tom T. Hall | Olive Hill, KY | Bluegrass Trails

Posted by Dave Jnr | October 19, 2017

“Portions of the Carter County town of Olive Hill, KY … were as quiet as we’d come to expect from rural Kentucky, but the town is both big enough (population over 1,500) to boast some activity and its residents curious enough to approach us wondering what on earth we obvious out-of-towners were doing poking around somewhere like Olive Hill. “Blame Tom T.”, we said. “Who else?”

The Osborne Brothers | Hyden, KY | Bluegrass Trails

Posted by Dave Jnr | October 18, 2017

‘There were/are signs on Osborne Brothers Way on the outskirts of the town commemorating Sonny and Bobby, born here in 1937 and 1931 respectively and still with us today, but nothing that said Osborne Brothers in the veritable ghost town of Hyden itself. Firmly on the bluegrass map, the town hosts a popular multi-day annual bluegrass festival, The Osborne Brothers Hometown Festival, at the town’s Bobby Osborne Pavilion. The festival started in 1994 as a benefit for the Thousandsticks Volunteer Fire Department and Hyden hosted its 25th festival in August of 2018. Festival weekend is probably as good a time as any to visit the town, and if doing so you should find it a livelier than how we found late on a mid-October afternoon.’

Kenny Baker | Jenkins, KY | Bluegrass Trails

Posted by Dave Jnr | October 18, 2017

“We did our pre-departure homework, so we were confident at the time that we’d find some reference in Jenkins or neighbouring Burdine/East Jenkins to master fiddler and former local boy Kenny Baker, best known for his 25-year tenure with Bill Monroe, the longest tenure of any of Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. But no, nothing. Not on the streets of the town, nor among the foliage of the town’s Sam Bentley Cemetery. We came up short.”