For much of the country, spring is upon us. Not just because of the date on the calendar, but the warmth of the sun on increasingly longer days, the gentle breeze bearing the scent of blooms (and pollen!), and at least where I grew up the sudden change of Mother Nature’s heart with the arrival […]
Rylan Brooks – If Wishes Were Horses
Most of us have done a cross country road trip at least once, and you don’t forget it. Especially if it included a long stretch between the Rockies and the Mississippi, where time and distance create a kind of elasticity to your plan. Doing those trips over and over and over became the rehearsal space […]
Ervin Stellar – Nothing To Prove
I love it when an artist takes someone else’s well-known song and so transforms the piece that they start to own it more than the original artist or songwriter. Ervin Stellar, the stage name of Andrew Jordan, does that on his new EP with Shanty, the Jonathan Edwards classic. Stellar injects such a nonchalant tempo […]
Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno
Three years ago in a cramped hotel room during Folk Alliance, at the advice of friends, I first heard a barely-out-of-high-school songstress, Vivian Leva, and her musical partner, Riley Calcagno. Leva had just released her debut album of Appalachian style folk and country songs. Belying her tender age, Leva’s soulful vocal delivery laid bare the […]
Lydia Luce – Dark River
Let me just start by saying that if you’re in the mood for something twangy, the new record from Nashville’s Lydia Luce is not going to scratch that itch. Luce is an in-demand studio musician around Nashville for her ability on a variety of stringed instruments, so she knows twang. But Dark River draws mostly […]
Chris Roberts – Red Feather
Life is unpredictable. That’s maybe the lesson learned from Austin native, now Colorado resident Chris Roberts. Unlike many musicians that throw away other opportunities to make music, Roberts’ success as a hat maker drove him to concentrate more on the music, perhaps as a creative counterbalance to the rigors of being a successful entrepreneur. His […]
Geoff Bradford – Texas Psychedelic
Now Austin based, Geoff Bradford grew up in New York City before living in locales as different as France and Venezuela. That diversity no doubt influenced his musical tastes, as evidenced in his new EP, Texas Psychedelic. If there’s a musical theme that runs through the record, I’d have to say it’s 70’s pop, with […]
Folk Alliance Int’l – Folk Unlocked Preview
For most of the last several years I’ve flown back east for what I consider to be the most under-appreciated music festival in the country; the annual Folk Alliance International conference. FAI does a tremendous amount of good for musicians, and the conference itself has many seminars targeted to beginners, long-time musicians and industry professionals. […]
In Memoriam – Chick Corea
When John Prine passed last spring, a lot of praise and admiration came out of tweets and web sites and publications that would never consider covering Americana, or folk, or whatever you want to call John’s music. His talent was so immense it surpassed a single genre and came to be a gold standard for […]
These Fine Moments – Season 10
Ten years ago producer Mark Hallman sent a new singer-songwriter duo out of his Congress House studio in Austin with a finished EP, their first recording. A decade on Hilary Kaufmann and Robert Watts as their nom de plume, These Fine Moments, have another record, this time full length and also produced by Hallman. In […]