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There are challenges that come with a four-day pass to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. With wall-to-wall excellent acts, from Hall-of-Famers to top prospect discoveries filling up to 15 hours of

The banjo is a key instrument in Western folk music -- from US bluegrass to Irish trad -- and over the past 20 years, research into the roots of this three-stringed instrument have revealed its west African lute origins, with two instruments, the ngoni and the ekonting, now understood to be the closest ancestors to the banjo.

It’s been 24 years since banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck has toured with a new bluegrass album. Yet, he has been anything but inert. During that time frame…

ITHACA, NY -- Béla Fleck is widely considered one of the world’s foremost banjo players, bringing the instrument from its bluegrass roots into jazz, classical and other musical genres. In

SOUTH BEND — The presenter mispronounced Lee Lodyga’s name at a Grammy Awards ceremony Sunday afternoon. But what she had to say mattered so much more: Lodyga had won his first Grammy, in the Best Historical Album category, as co-producer of Omnivore Recordings’ “It’s Such a Good Feeling: The Best of Mister Rogers.” And it is a good feeling, although he eschews making the obvious pun on the album’s title. “It feels, obviously, fantastic," he said Monday. "My folks are so proud.�...

SOUTH BEND — The presenter mispronounced Lee Lodyga’s name at a Grammy Awards ceremony Sunday afternoon. But what she had to say mattered so much more: Lodyga had won his first Grammy, in the Best Historical Album category, as co-producer of Omnivore Recordings’ “It’s Such a Good Feeling: The Best of Mister Rogers.” And it is a good feeling, although he eschews making the obvious pun on the album’s title. “It feels, obviously, fantastic,” he said Mon...

Editors note: Co-producers Lee Lodyga and Cheryl Pawelski and mastering engineer Michael Graves won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album during the afternoon portion of Sundays Grammy ceremonies. SOUTH BEND — Lee Lodyga made a lot of mixtapes when he was a student at Adams High School in the early 1980s. And as anyone who made more than a few such magnetic time capsules experienced, he occasionally reached the end of a side with 2 minutes of tape left in a 3-minute pop song world....

Listen • 11:10 Béla Fleck performs at the Celtic Connections Festival at The Old Fruit Market on Jan. 24, 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Ross Gilmore/Redferns/Getty Images) Banjo great Béla Fleck’s “Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions” reissue has been nominated for Best Historical Album at the Grammy Awards. Back in 2005, the now 62-year-old acclaimed musician went to Africa to explore the origins of the banjo. Fleck toured through Uganda, Tanzania, G...

How Pop and Jazz Wrapped Up the Past in 16 Boxed Sets Reissues and deluxe editions of albums by PJ Harvey, Lil Peep, Charles Mingus and others provide fresh looks at familiar works, and the creative processes that birthed them. Iggy Pop’s “The Bowie Years” revisits the two albums David Bowie produced for the Stooges frontman, “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life,” with a host of extras.Credit...UMe Dec. 23, 2020 (Virgin/UMC; three CDs, $63.89; three LPs, $75.98) Alive with isolated, col...