Boston Bluegrass Union

13/10/2026

Announcing the First Wave of Joe Val 2027 Bands!
We are thrilled to announce the first wave of bands for Joe Val 2027, led by Grammy-winning The Earls of Leicester, Jerry Douglas's tribute to the music of Flatt & Scruggs, on Sunday, February 14th! Here's who we're announcing today, with many more to come:
The Earls of Leicester
Michael Daves and Jacob Joliff
The Price Sisters
High Horse
Bob and Sarah Amos Band
Berklee Bluegrass Band

Check out our new Joe Val Bluegrass Festival site at https://jvfest.org

09/10/2026

We’re hosting some great bands Chattanooga Bluegrass International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Please come join us Oct 20 and 21 in Chattanooga!

06/10/2026

Be careful, you might fall down a rabbit hole reading back issues of the Bluegrass Breakdown! History in the making.

Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center at the University Libraries at UMass Amherst has been busy processing the Folk New England collection. We've added more digitized content for the Boston Bluegrass Union. Take a look here. https://credo.library.umass.edu/search?q=boston+bluegrass+union

28/09/2026

Great time Arrow Street Arts with The Seldom Scene and a picking party beforehand for our 50th anniversary. Thank you to everyone who made it out!

11/09/2026

The great Ron Stewart will be with us Sept 27 with the Seldom Scene. Picky Fingers podcast here. Get your tix now! Link in comments.

10/09/2026

Tickets are going fast for the BBU's 50th Anniversary

Sunday, September 27th at 7 pm in Harvard Sq.
It won't be too long before we have important details to share about the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, including some of the awesome bands we have booked and the dates of this year's hotel room lottery. And in the meantime, we want to let you know that tickets are going fast for the BBU's 50th Anniversary Concert coming up on the last Sunday in September. We're excited about some of the jammers who will be joining us earlier that day for the pre-concert jams (more on this hopefully soon).

Here are the details of our 50th Anniversary Concert:

The Boston Bluegrass Union (BBU) presents The Seldom Scene at Arrow Street Arts in Cambridge, MA on Sunday, September 27th, 2026. The concert honors both the founding of the BBU 50 years ago in September 1976 and one of its guiding lights, Stan Zdonik, who passed away earlier this year.

With Stan’s legacy in mind, we come full circle to honor 50 incredible years of BBU bluegrass shows with this very special concert right back where it all started in Cambridge. Just a short walk across Harvard Square from the site of the first BBU show at the “big brown church with rooster on top” is Arrow Street Arts – a new, acoustically state-of-the-art venue where we will hear The Seldom Scene, one of the most celebrated and influential bluegrass bands of all time!

The anniversary event will start at 4 pm when Arrow Street Arts opens up their beautiful multi-room space for jamming. Bring your instruments or just come listen; there's no ticket required for the jamming portion of our anniversary celebration. There will be a cash bar on-site and a free instrument check available after the jams.

Arrow Street Arts is located at the intersection of Arrow St. and Mass. Ave. in Harvard Sq. in Cambridge. Since the concert is on a Sunday, there are lots of free parking spaces in and around Harvard Square. Concert seating is first come, first served, with doors opening at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $40 ($45 for non-members and $20 for students with a valid ID) plus Ticketmaster fees. To access the different types of tickets, just click on the General Admission button. There are now far fewer than 250 tickets available, so you'll want to get yours soon!

https://www.ticketmaster.com/boston-bluegrass-union-50th-anniversary-concert-cambridge-massachusetts-09-27-2026/event/0100651995499772