There's a tradition here of publishing at least one bluegrass haiku column per year. I've usually taken presidential election years off because even short-form poetry about leaves and clouds is controversial and divisive in these years ("Is that a reference
Opinion / Humor
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From The Side of the Road… a look back at millennial bluegrass humor
WIth Gen Z soaking up a lot of press right now (while not knowing what the antiquated term "press" even refers to), it's easy to forget that millennial jokes still resonate with people, which I think is even a pretty
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From The Side of the Road… For Your Consideration notices
For your consideration: I might as well warn you that I'll be opening all correspondence this way for the next two weeks. It has a little more zip to it than, "To Whom it May Concern," anyway. I'm also going to
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From The Side of the Road… tax advice for the bluegrass musician
I'm traveling today, so this is actually a rerun from years gone by. Since the subject is taxes for musicians, though, you'll find it has a certain timeless quality, because nothing else gives quite the sense of deja vu as
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From The Side of the Road… even bigger and still better
We sometimes don't like to think of it this way, but we live in a fiercely competitive and ever-changing business, with all of us searching for ways to offer something unique, and to find something that will give our musical
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From The Side of the Road… video game for bluegrass songwriters
I never thought I'd find myself discussing video games in this space; I'm really more of a pinball guy, which I like to think of as an acoustic video game that you can set a drink on. Still, there's been
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From The Side of the Road… collective noun usage for the bluegrass artist
We in the bluegrass music community have our own vocabulary, like referring to the banjo as "the five," an instrumental solo as a "break," a professional bluegrass income as "a living," etc. I think we could all still stand to
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From The Side of the Road… bluegrass anniversary gift ideas
Do you have a big wedding anniversary coming up? When we celebrated our 30th, I decided to consult the list of year or milestone-appropriate gifts as a guide for my gift (the 60th anniversary gift, by the way, is an
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From The Side of the Road… the missing ingredient in bluegrass songs
I don't know if you’re familiar with the song made popular by Dobie Gray in 1973 called Drift Away, but it's a song that's had enduring appeal. I personally have always been a huge fan of the Dobie Gray version.
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From The Side of the Road… find your bluegrass stage name
Do you ever play the name games? I'm referring to the cute methods of generating your own alternate name for a specific occupation. For example, you can arrive at your stage name by combining your middle name with the name