Bluegrass Legends at the Birchmere, Wolf Trap, Politics and Prose
By • January 8, 2026 0 416
Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry began as a live radio variety show, “The WSM Barn Dance,” broadcast for the first time on Saturday, Nov. 28, 1925, from a downtown studio. Based at the Ryman Auditorium, known as the “Mother Church of Country Music,” beginning in 1943, the show relocated in 1974 to a new Opry House at Opryland, about 10 miles east (it now returns to the Ryman in the winter).
The Opry is hosting its own yearlong 100th birthday party with events such as Opry Goes Dolly (Jan. 17), Opry Celebrates: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Feb. 28) and a Country Classics series.
Can’t make it to Music City during the Opry’s centennial year? This month, you can catch two of its bluegrass stars — and a legendary nonmember — at D.C.-area venues.
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder rolled into Alexandria on the first weekend of 2025. This year, the master mandolinist and his band will return to the Birchmere on the second weekend: this Friday and Saturday, Jan. 9 and 10.
Skaggs, who turned 71 last July, has been pickin’ and grinnin’ for most of his life. In 1960, age 6, he was invited onstage by Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe. At age 7, he played with peerless guitar and banjo duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. At 27, in 1982, Skaggs became the Opry’s youngest inductee. (The youngest to date is singer-songwriter Kelsea Ballerini, who was 25 when inducted in 2019.)
In addition to playing with bluegrass and “newgrass” bands, and a period in the 1980s and early ’90s as a country heartthrob, Skaggs has performed with, among others, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Hornsby, Phish and the Raconteurs. Both shows at the Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., are at 7:30 p.m. The music hall’s doors and box office open at 5 p.m., with seating and food ordering available from 6 p.m. on.
Northern Virginia will welcome another bluegrass giant later this month, when Delano Floyd McCoury, who turns 87 on Feb. 1, brings his band to the Barns at Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Road in Vienna. The Del McCoury Band’s only DMV performances in the first half of 2025 (not counting DelFest, see below), will be a five-night stand between Friday, Jan. 16, and Wednesday, Jan. 21.
Starting out as a banjo player, McCoury — born in Bakersville, North Carolina, and raised in York County, Pennsylvania — switched to guitar when he spent a year, 1963-64, with Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys (the source of the genre’s name). Sons Ronnie, on mandolin, and Rob, on banjo, joined their dad’s band in the 1980s. The other current members are bassist Alan Bartram, since 2005, and fiddler Christian Ward, who took over Jason Carter’s spot last year. McCoury became a Grand Ole Opry member in 2003.
Each of the 8 p.m. shows at Wolf Trap has a different theme, so Del-Heads and first-timers can choose based on their preferences: Crowd Favorites (Friday, Jan. 16), Original Music (Saturday, Jan. 17), Twin Fiddles, with Carter dropping back in (Sunday, Jan. 18), Family Album (Tuesday, Jan. 20) and Classic Bluegrass (Wednesday, Jan. 21).
The McCoury Band’s 2024 album, “Songs of Love and Life,” with Molly Tuttle on vocals and Josh Shilling on piano, is a sampler, with tracks that range from “Legend of the Lost Confederate Gold” and “Working for the W.P.A.” to Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” and the ’70s Elvis tune “If You Talk in Your Sleep.”
The lobby and bar at the Barns open 90 minutes prior to showtime; the theater opens 30 minutes prior. Note: Main-floor tickets to the Friday and Saturday performances are general admission, standing room. Reserved seating for those two shows is available in the balcony.
The stage will go up at the Allegany County Fairgrounds in Cumberland, Maryland, for DelFest on Thursday, May 21. Along with McCoury and his band, the lineup for the four-day festival, launched in 2008, features a dozen other acts, notably Alison Krauss & Union Station, Sierra Hull and Punch Brothers.
Attention, fans of bluegrass, folk and other roots genres: On Thursday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m., Alice Gerrard — a force in traditional music since the 1960s revival, when with the late Hazel Dickens she was part of the D.C.-Baltimore scene — will be at Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 4th St. NE, to talk about her new memoir, “Custom Made Woman.” The bookstore is presenting Gerrard, 91, in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
