
I've cheated a little here, penning this a few days in advance just in case something goes awry in our plans, scheduling it to post automatically so you could be here now. But in my mind, it's Wednesday as I write this, legs up in the passenger seat for a short leg of the long drive from San Simeon to Monterey, where my wife's relatives will be putting us up at a seaside conference center and resort that boasts such "authentic" rustic environs that it eschews TV and radio, and provides wi-fi solely in the lobby. [...]

Well-covered in popular culture and over at classic songs collaborative Star Maker Machine , John Hartford never made the splash he could and should have as a performer, in part because Glen Campbell's Grammy-winning cover of Gentle On My Mind sold so well, the cash flow gave Hartford license to chuck it all in and pursue his true passion - as a steamboat captain on his beloved Mississippi River. But the man I once heard referred to as "the clown prince of old-time" kept coming back to the music, [...]

I had planned to post a huge survey of new and upcoming tribute albums from the folkworld here in this space today, but after a week of bedside Zen , Sunday's late-night sociopolitical rant , and a full-bore reentry into teaching and town business meetings, exhaustion seems to have caught up with me. I'll be working on that tribute post throughout the week, and hope to have it up on Sunday at the latest. But in the interest of deadlines, and because the ol' brain is really not up to much [...]

The Biscuit Boys: White Habit [ purchase ] Here's a nun "chaser" for anyone who needs to cleanse the palate after the sexy clothes subtheme we seem to have evolved today. Step back a bit, and they look like a raft of penguins . The accompanying crisp, pristine bluegrass instrumental comes courtesy of The Biscuit Boys , a short-lived band of young string wizards which broke up a year or two after after the millennium, just a little too early to [...]