Classic. The word more properly evokes a feeling than a concrete meaning. The meaning would be flatly explained as something from the past that has gained a memorable status. When applying “Classic” to the bluegrass genre a whole new set of meanings and associations surface. Bluegrass is classic Americana. A genre that is wholly American and comes loaded with stories and fables that define less of a time than a mentality. The workingman’s blues.

The Grateful Web just had an amazing opportunity to speak to bluegrass legend, Del McCoury.

What can’t Bela Fleck do? Or maybe the question is what can’t Bela Fleck do with a banjo? Aside from his history with the Flecktones, bridging and bending the idea of genre and fusion music he produced his first film, “Throw Down Your Heart”, a journey into the true origins of the banjo in Africa. The film also drew awareness to culture and struggles abroad, something rarely achieved through a concert film.

It’s so interesting to ponder how the Grateful Dead, despite being self-described poster children for avoiding politics and activism and concentrating on music, really aren’t that. From the beginning all members of the Dead were rooted in San Francisco’s scene and are an iconic representation of so many different facets of a humanitarian persuasion.

The status of the touring scene in the U.S. has seen quite a few changes since the “come-back” of the jam band in the early nineties.

Grateful Web's Dylan Muhlberg had an opportunity to talk to Ken Hays, founder of Gathering of the Vibes festival.  Ken discussed the impetus for creating Vibes back in 1996, the current status of the jamband scene, why Vibes is such a family friendly fest. and Ken gives a hint on who we can expect from this year's Vibes...

Summer is music festival season. Plain and simple. It’s the easiest time to travel to whatever destination and have the assurance that you will be comfortable and satisfied with variable weather conditions. July festivals do have their pitfalls on that end though, with scorching temperatures and fields filled with thousands of festival-goers, sometimes the dead of summer multi-day musical festivals can be exhausting and problematic to those who are more about the music and less about sunscreen and lugging camping gear around.

Many different bands could be sited as having created the Boulder music sound. Since the 1970s and even before, Boulder has been an outlet for “freaks” everywhere to unite and be free in artistic creation and expression. Along with having a large population of young people from University of Colorado’s Boulder campus, the spirit of the town itself has always been young, wild, and free. Of all the artistic mediums, Boulder’s live music scene and support has always seemed strongest.

By the fall of 1994, the Grateful Dead scene was growing unmanageably large. Even large mainstay venues that the boys have been performing at for decades were too small anymore. The performance that used to be a not-so-well-kept secret had grown to sell out the largest football and soccer stadiums.

The biggest sham perpetuated by mainstream rock and pop music magazines is the narrow “greatest guitarists of all time” annual issue. In the editor’s defense, it’s probably a dreaded task. Most of these sorts of publications (none specific come to mind, of course) tend to focus their top picks on the straightforward rock guitar heroes. Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman.