Don't miss the newest Bluegrass show on WMMT, First Generation Blue Grass with your hostess - Mrs. Bluegrass. You'll hear all the best of that great First Generation of Blue Grass music from the earliest recordings right up to 1970! Read more about Mrs. Bluegrass...

Well, I was born way back in the hills of Concord, Massachusetts, in 1955
I come from a musical family, we all play stringed instruments of one kind or another, piano, guitar, pipe organ. And of course, lots of group singing 'round the Steinway piano with our mother, Hope pounding on the horse teeth!
My sister Anne and I sang in the church choir. It was there I learned proper breathing techniques, and how to read music. But I prefer to play by ear.
I remember vividly as a kid listening to the radio in the kitchen. In those days it was still AM, but boy howdy! The variety of music that came through the air was priceless. I soaked it all up like a sponge. The Beatles had just performed live on Ed Sullivan, I was enraptured by them. They looked like they were so happy, and having so much fun, and were very cute too! I wanted to be a part of something like that!
It was one of those fateful March mornings, in 1963, that I heard live coverage about the plane crash that Killed Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and the pilot as well. I was really affected by that. I knew and loved her music, it was on all the time. I felt like I knew her personally, through her music.
As time went on, TV became a familiar part of my everyday life. The B&W set was big and boxy, wrapped around metal that was painted to look like wood grain, with buttons to push on and off, and a big green picture tube that glowed in the dark when you shut it off at night.
It was while glued to the tv that I had my first bluegrass music experience. I loved to watch the Andy Griffith Show every night, particularly when the Dillards came on. I knew right then and there, I was destined to live in the south. that was the kind of life I dreamed of, in Mayberry, NC.
"The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres, all solidified into my soul. I could relate to all of it, to one degree or another. I felt as if I belonged there.
As a teen, I liked to listen to the WCOP Hayloft Jamboree, a country/bluegrass variety show that aired on Saturday nights, from an FM station in New Hampshire.
I attended Emerson College in Boston in the '70's graduating from there in 1978 with a Bachelor's Degree in Mass Communications.
During college, I became an active volunteer at The Boston Area Friends of Bluegrass, which later on became the Boston Bluegrass Union.
It was then I heard my first live bluegrass show, in Cambridge, MA. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys performed in a small church in Harvard Square, and afterwards, I was hooked for LIFE!
I play upright bass, self taught since 1979. I purchased the bass from a town drunk in Stonington, CT for fifty bucks. Since then I have acquired a Gibson Epiphone Guitar, Art's Kentucky mandolin, and a beautiful new Deering Good Times Banjo!
Bluegrass music was hard to find in and around New England. But when we DID, it was a spiritual out of body experience! Believe me, the artists were well aware of the Boston area, and its core of devoted, rabid fans, eager to listen intently, and then applaud wildly after every song; plus we were generous with the $$$ up there, lining up 3 deep just to catch a glimpse of our heros, and buying every record, tape in sight
I met my future husband, Art Menius in 1986 at the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival, [now called, Grey Fox] in Acramdale, NY. He was promoting a new trade organization for people in bluegrass music, called the IBMA, or International Bluegrass Music Association.
I was a volunteer in the Performer's Tent. I made it my business to meet everyone in Bluegrass music there was to meet. I still do this to this day. They have become my family of choice.
Throughout all of this, I was becoming a photojournalist, capturing bluegrass music on 35mm film with my Uncle Fred's Pentax Camera.
My dreams came true on XMAS day in 1989, when I moved with Art's help to his small house in Pittsboro, NC. We lived there for the next 15 years.
Whilst living in Pittsboro, I put together my first picture book. It's called "Inside Bluegrass". It was published in 1998, and sold out in early 2005. Copies are still available on EBay.
I was the Official Photo Archivist for the IBMA's annual World of Bluegrass for 12 consecutive years.
In 1994-96, I was the Staff Photographer for the Folk Alliance's annual conference.
In 2005, we moved north to Wilkes County, NC, where Art was Director of Merlefest, at Wilkes Community College.
I became Staff Photographer there for the next 15 years.
As of July 2007, Art accepted the Directorship of Appalshop, Inc. in Whitesburg, KY.
I moved to our lovely new home in September of 2007
By November I was training and then filling in on bluegrass shows on WMMT. I did this throughout the holidays, always happy and eager to be a DJ. It came very easily to me.
And now, to be offered my OWN bluegrass show is quite an honor indeed!
I have found my home. And more importantly, I have found my own voice.