My name is Jim Ellis and I began this site in October 2005 as a hobby. Within a couple of months I had a good friend of mine (Gary Williams) jump in and start helping out with putting a calendar together. Slowly Gary became more and more involved with research, promotion and the work on the calendar. This has evolved into a joint hobby with me doing all of the actual html work and Gary doing a lot of the other stuff. This is just one of my hobbies along with playing Mandolin, Mandobanjo, Mandola and Appalachian Dulcimer. Gary took a couple of banjo lessons soon after joining into this project and his "Banjo Odyssey" in the Message Board is always good for a couple of chuckles, not just at him but at myself as well.

I do not possess great skills in writing web pages so these pages may appear a little simple compared to some other flashier websites. I like to think of these web pages as being "down to earth", kind of like my music. I hope you will over look the plain look of this website, misspellings and grammatical errors and find it as a useful tool.

Although this is our hobby - it is also a community effort. A lot of the information found with in these pages is only here because users of this site send me information they want to share with their music loving neighbors. If you have any information or web site links you want to share on this site - don't be shy - just send them on over. I will review it and decide if it is appropriate for this site and try to get it posted as soon as I can. Also remember you can always post things on the message board if you sign up. Signing up is free and your email will never be sold or abused. The main focus is Bluegrass, Acoustic Country, Old Time Mountain Music and Folk music especially for the great Commonwealth of Virginia.

I hope this web site helps you in your acoustic string music journey.

Your friend and fellow music lover,

Jim's story about Bluegrass In Munich

3126 W. Cary St, No. 430, Richmond, VA 23221 or (804) 363-0763 cell