''Bluegrass Unlimited'' is a monthly

music magazine A music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music. Notable mu ...

"dedicated to the furtherance of bluegrass and

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination ...

ians, devotees and associates."''BU'' advertising rate card
Accessed 2011-09-18. First published in 1966, as of 2008 the magazine had a circulation of more than 25,000 copies and is widely considered the premier magazine for bluegrass music. ''Bluegrass Unlimited'' is a founding member of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA).''Bluegrass Unlimited'' website
"About" page. Accessed 2011-09-19. Folklorist and music scholar

Neil V. Rosenberg Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. A ...

, in ''Bluegrass: A History'', sets out the history of ''Bluegrass Unlimited'' and thereafter notes its prominence and influence as the oldest of the nationally distributed bluegrass magazines. The magazine launched, in 1966, in a typed,

mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...

ed 7– x 8½–inch booklet-like formatRosenberg, Neil. ''Bluegrass: A History''. p.285 with a hand drawn logo, and was available for per year.Rosenberg, Neil. ''Bluegrass: A History''. p.225 In the fall of 1970, the magazine moved from an informal to a full-time operation with "new publishers" Pete and Marion Kuykendall upgrading it to a larger, standard format on glossy paper.Rosenberg, Neil. ''Bluegrass: A History''. p.288 The current U.S. subscription rate is $25.00 per year and the magazine is full-color and printed on high-speed web offset presses. As music historian

Bill C. Malone Bill C. Malone (born August 25, 1934) is an American musician, author and historian specializing in country music and other forms of traditional American music. He is the author of the 1968 book ''Country Music, U.S.A.'', the first definitive acad ...

observed, ''Bluegrass Unlimited'' magazine was initially devoted primarily to bluegrass music in the USA and abroad with occasional reference to old time country music. It is now a treasure trove of information on every phase of bluegrass and old-time music - biographical articles, discographies, record and book reviews, concert and festival dates, interviews, classified ads, and songs.Malone, Bill C.
''Country Music USA''
University of Texas Press (2002) . p. 542 "''Bluegrass Unlimited'' has always been a thorough compendium of material on bluegrass and old-time music."Malone, Bill C., ''Country Music USA'', p. 558. Speaking of founder Pete Kuykendall and the influence of ''Bluegrass Unlimited'', David Freeman, owner of

Rebel Records Rebel Records is an independent American record label based in Charlottesville, Virginia that specializes in bluegrass and old time music. The label was founded in Mount Rainier, Maryland in 1959 by Dick Freeland, Bill Carroll and Sonny Compton. ...

and

County Records County Records was a Virginia-based independent American record label founded by David Freeman (music historian), David Freeman in 1963. The label specialised in old-time music, old-time and traditional bluegrass music. History Old-time music co ...

, said: "When the magazine started publishing, bluegrass was pretty much at a low point. The magazine spread the word and highlighted the artistic aspect of the music, which helped to bring it out of the bars where it was in the 1950s. Without him I don’t know where the bluegrass industry would be today." The 1996

International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame Induction to the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, called the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor from its creation in 1991 through 2006, is managed by the International Bluegrass Music Association, and the Hall itself is mainta ...

citation inducting Pete Kuykendall says that ''Bluegrass Unlimited'' magazine is "a publication affectionately referred to as the 'bible of bluegrass music'".Citation inducting Peter V. Kuykendall
into the IBM Hall of Fame, 1996. Retrieved 2011-09-19.

References

Sources

*Rosenberg, Neil V.
''Bluegrass: A History''
"Music in American Life" series. University of Illinois Press (1993). . 447 pp.

External links

* {{Bluegrass music Monthly magazines published in the United States Music magazines published in the United States Bluegrass music Magazines established in 1966 Magazines of the Southern United States Old-time music Magazines published in Virginia