2020 In Memoriam
“Remembering some of those we lost, from the bluegrass community and beyond, during the utterly forgettable twelve months of 2020.”
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Category: Featured
Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum
“It is a rather convenient forty miles from the birthplace of bluegrass — the brilliantly restored Bill Monroe Homeplace in the hills over Rosine, KY — to Owensboro, KY. For a straight up bluegrass pilgrimage, the latter doesn’t quite hold the weight, nor the aura, of the former. That said, Owensboro’s (new) Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum, the city’s awesome one-of-a-kind showcase of all things bluegrass, should not be missed. The only museum of its kind in the world is, not surprisingly, dedicated to telling the story of the relatively short history of the bluegrass genre, the instruments at the core of its unique sound, and the gifted musicians who have brought the music to life and shaped it down through the years.”
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The Station Inn
“It’s simple. It’s small. It’s unassuming, both inside and out. But the dark and intimate listening room that is Nashville’s Station Inn is the Music City bluegrass mecca. Located in the trendy and hip Gulch district of the city, this first-come, first-served cash-on-the-door-only venue has been ‘Forever Bluegrass’ since its opening in 1974. Legends have performed here. Ground-breaking and award-winning bands have been formed through relationships forged here. And for artists, many of whom view it as the nation’s hub of live bluegrass music, it’s both a career highlight and honour to perform here.”
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SiriusXM Bluegrass Junction
“Since its 2001 launch Bluegrass Junction has had its primary residence in Nashville… located behind the blue glass walls of the cylindrical Arena tower of Downtown Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena… the Bluegrass Junction studios are, rather appropriately, in eyeshot of the city’s iconic Ryman Auditorium, upon whose stage bluegrass, the genre the channel promotes, was born in December of 1945.”
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Nashville
“We had a few nights of gallivanting around Nashville, time enough to find some real country music and bluegrass. Both are here. You just need to know where to look (and to avoid Lower Broadway). We found and enjoyed happy helpings of both courtesy of Opryland’s Nashville Palace, a mere drunken stagger from our room in the Fiddler’s Inn and Nashville’s self-titled ‘Home of Traditional Country Music’, and the simple but intimate setting of The Station Inn, famously ‘Forever Bluegrass’ since 1974. In between we paid a visit to the studios of Sirius XM’s Bluegrass Junction and 650AM WSM, not to mention a visit to both Oprys, the old (the venerated Ryman Auditorium) and the new (Opryland’s Grand Ole Opry House).”
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Seth Mulder & Midnight Run | Ireland 2020
“Seth Mulder & Midnight Run is high-energy, traditional bluegrass with a ‘fresh approach to the ‘High Lonesome sound’. One of the most entertaining bluegrass acts on the scene today, we are huge fans of these guys, and if you had but a single bluegrass-lovin’ bone in your whole body then you’d understand why. We hadn’t planned on seeing three shows of their exhaustive early 2020 Ireland & UK tour, but we did. We kept going back for more.”
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Lester Flatt & Benny Martin | Sparta, TN | Bluegrass Trails
“… Sparta is small-town musical Tennessee with some big-name former residents, one of which, Lester Flatt, is one of the most influential proponents of the bluegrass sound he helped to pioneer. Present-day Sparta is grabbing this association with both hands and running with it, even going so far as to brand itself as ‘Bluegrass USA’, and who could blame it if doing so is going to attract the likes of bluegrass-lovin’ us.”
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Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver | Apply Now
“Probably no band of late better signifies the revolving door nature of a bluegrass ensemble than does Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. With the recent announcement of banjo man Joe Dean’s departure from the band, hot on the heals of fiddler Stephen Burwell’s departure announcement last week and dobro ace Josh Swift’s in January, Doyle Lawson is probably frantically scouring Craigslist in a bid to find the latest Quicksilver members (not really; we’re pretty sure he has more appropriate and established channels as he has excelled in this aspect of bluegrass band HR since Quicksilver’s formation in 1979).”
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Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen | Bluegrass Island 2018
“At the risk of offending, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen… is a Marmite band, an informal British-based term meaning in this case that you either like their line-muddying, boundary-pushing, refuses-to-be-pigeonholed brand of bluegrass or you don’t … however you class their take on the genre, the quartet, collectively the IBMA’s Instrumental Group of the Year in 2016 (they sing as well, by the way), let their instruments speak for themselves, and speak they do. I guess that’s why I hit record on my camera. Three times, for three choice morsels, you could say.”
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Ricky Skaggs | Europe 1985
“Only a 9-year-old me would have the gumption to solicit Ricky’s attention mid-set during the Dublin leg of his 1985 European tour, his first tour as a bandleader at the height of his 1980’s country success and a tour that would spawn an album, ‘Live In London’, that would leave an indelible impression on me.”
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✝️ JUNIOR BARBER | MARCH 8, 2017 ✝️ ![]()
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Remembering popular reso-guitarist Junior Barber, best known for his seven-year stint as the dobro don with Eric and Leigh, The Gibson Brothers, who died on this day, March 8, in 2017.![]()
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💬 “He’s a legend up here [upstate New York], one of the first pro musicians me and Leigh ever got to work with. Junior was a super tasteful player, a real tone freak. He helped mold us into becoming better musicians, teaching us the importance of restraint, taste, and tone. Junior was a huge influence on us, and I am very thankful for that.” - Eric Gibson![]()
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ℹ️ Junior Barber, born Antoine D. Barber Jr. in Chazy Lake, New York, was 17 when he discovered the captivating sound of the dobro. A music lover all his life, his younger years were spent dabbling with amplified instruments in a string of musical ensembles -- everything from country to garage rock – throughout the New England region. He eventually sold all his electric instruments and devoted the rest of his musical journey to the dobro and acoustic music, specifically his first love, bluegrass. He was both an avid educator and a student of the dobro and his work with The Gibson Brothers, starting in the early 1990s, was something of a family affair; his son, Mike, has played bass for the brothers since 1991. ![]()
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Nominated by the IBMA for Dobro Player of the Year five years running, Junior Barber was unable to play music after suffering a stroke in 2016 and died on this day in 2017 at the age of 73. ![]()
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RIP, Junior Barber. ✝️ ![]()
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