Rhiannon Giddens is a flame-keeper. At any given moment, she is keeping history alive. Music alive. Stories alive. Authenticity alive. But she does all this in a way that bridges academic prestige ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Hugh McIntyre covers music, with a focus on the global charts. In today's era, the internet is awash with visual content that is ...

Musician Rhiannon Giddens is a Renaissance woman whose work shines across a variety of genres. She is a talented singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist; she has won two Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize ...

Near the beginning of “Deliverance”, a horror film of 1972 about four men from Atlanta who go canoeing in the backwoods of north Georgia, one of the city types takes a guitar from his car and trades ...

Pop superstar Beyoncé released "Texas Hold 'Em" a few weeks ago and it features an instrument that she had never emphasized before. This hit song, on her new (and hugely popular) Cowboy Carter album, ...

Bela Fleck is on a roll as his "The Africa Project" tour heads toward Indianapolis. The banjo trailblazer picked up two Grammy Awards last month for his 2009 album Throw Down Your Heart, a collection ...

A Sweet Briar connection for author Kristina R. Gaddy became part of her trajectory to writing the book Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History. She started playing classical violin at a ...