Industrial Strength Bluegrass

"If you believe that a purpose of volumes such as Industrial Strength Bluegrass is to stimulate thinking about a subject, then Industrial Strength Bluegrass serves its purpose well." --Journal of Folklore Research
"If you believe that a purpose of volumes such as Industrial Strength Bluegrass is to stimulate thinking about a subject, then Industrial Strength Bluegrass serves its purpose well." --Journal of Folklore Research
"With its extensive notes and sources, this book is a rich resource of information and powerful insights into the people and times that left an indelible mark on bluegrass." --Bluegrass Unlimited
​"Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwest Ohio’s Musical Legacy, both the book and the recording, are major contributions to the field of Appalachian Studies. These works provide a view of the urban Appalachian experience that reveals the story of Appalachian migration, the influence of Appalachian culture in areas like greater Cincinnati and takes us up to the present ways that Appalachian culture still impacts the region and the world beyond." --Urban Appalachian Community Coalition
​"They have created this lively look at the southern Ohio region and the music that magically materialized when the right people came along. . . . Soundly supported scholarship and down-to-earth accounts from those who were there and made it happen." --Bookreporter.com
"My family left Jackson County, Kentucky, in the late 1950s to find work in Ohio. The sounds and songs from home naturally tagged along with us. Riding around in Dad’s truck there as a kid, the first music I remember hearing was the Osborne Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs on WPFB. Industrial Strength Bluegrass brings to life how bluegrass developed in the Cincinnati/Dayton region. I love the vivid stories of how the genre came of age and all the fascinating characters who catapulted it onto the world’s stage."--Dan Hays, former Executive Director of the International Bluegrass Music Association
​​​"Essential reading for any bluegrass fan. What a cast—from flawed geniuses, raucously liberated women, and gun-toting business proprietors to Eagle Scouts, professors, and creative artists of the highest order, all mixed together in the same petri dish, all true to themselves and their music. The setting for the first bluegrass college concert, Antioch, as well as where Mike Lilly rode his Harley into the Living Arts Center; Moon Mullins professed, promoted, and ad-libbed commercials with colorful epithets surpassing Barnum’s; motley barrooms became famous nationwide for the quality of the music played there; and, true to their work ethic, bluegrass professionals sprouted everywhere and many rose to national fame. The barroom bluegrass of Southwest Ohio spawned by Appalachian transplants who had taken the 'trail of the bologna rinds' was just as good and often more exciting than the bluegrass of the traveling professionals who first developed the music. When the two met here, it split the bluegrass atom."--Ron Thomason, founder and leader of the Dry Branch Fire Squad
​​​"An appealing and accessible musical history that showcases the importance of homegrown regional musical culture. For bluegrass fans and historians of the genre." --Library Journal