On the day the stock market fell another 678 points, the only good story I could find in today’s Wall Street Journal was on Dobro God Jerry Douglas.  Entitled:  Jerry Douglas:  Irreplaceable Instrumentalist, it is a nice feature on how Douglas thinks like a vocalist when he plays.  The article also has Douglas’ take on why so many young bluegrassers expand their playing into more jazz-oriented music:

 Bluegrass is such a chops-oriented music. It builds stamina and strength in your hands because it’s such a physical music, so hard-driving. And you have to stay up; you can’t just play half the song. Sometimes it seems like it’s an endurance test to see who can play fastest the longest! And with that training, you can go just about anywhere else, because you’ve already played all those notes in rapid succession.

Thanks to the irreplaceable Bluegrass Blog for highlighting this story on an otherwise dreary news day.

More to come…

DJB