Bluegrass Music

The band Gangstagrass combines hip-hop and bluegrass, whose shared roots complement each other in surprising ways. They play at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday.

It’s been two years since The Honey Chasers last played before a live audience.

Bluegrass is what drew Béla Fleck to the banjo. He heard the theme song to “The Beverly Hillbillies” and the “Dueling Banjos” as a kid, and said he felt…

Them Coulee Boys frontman Soren Staff wanted the Eau Claire, Wis.-based band’s third album to hang together thematically. Like many bands, their first…

Shawn Hoeft of Bloomington believes her son Zac would have celebrated his 29th birthday this year had the unknown gunman who killed him been exposed to…

Good Morning Bedlam is another young string band more inspired by — than tethered to — traditional bluegrass.Band leader Isaak Elker says an Avett…

In the bluegrass world where technical prowess is highly valued, stand-up bassist and vocalist Jesse Farrar of Old Salt Union believes songwriting…

Stefan Szabo came to professional music at the relative late age of his later 30s.The founder of the folk/Americana band National Park Radio says working…

A steamboat cruise on the Illinois River seems an unlikely first gig for a gospel-tinged bluegrass band.“I don’t think everyone was interested in hearing…

You might think bluegrass and hip-hop would mix like oil and water, but Gangstagrass banjoist Dan Whitener says the band attracts bluegrass fans being…