I’ll get straight to the point here. Â Carrie Rodriguez has finally captured the energy, or spirit, or je ne sais quoi, or whatever you want to call it, of seeing her live, on a record. Â I’ve enjoyed Carrie’s previous records. Â But they tended to be sort of introspective. Â Go to a live show, though, and […]
Shawn’s Favorite Live Sets of 2012
I got a chance to see some great live music this year, so while we’re all posting our favorite albums of the past year I thought I’d add my 2 cents on the favorite shows I saw.  The World Famous Headliners  OK, admittedly, my ranking here is actually based on two sets I saw them […]
Shawn’s Favorite Albums of 2012
Unlike Eli, I struggled to pick my top choices for music last year. Â Any one of my top 4 or 5 might have won out at a different time. Â That’s an indicator that it was a good year for music though, with a good mix of long-time Twangville and chart favorites as well as some […]
Miscellaneous Gems
Over the last 6 months or so I’ve come across a few albums or EP’s that I enjoyed, but for one reason or another didn’t do a full review. Â As the year winds down I figured it’s a good time to collect a few of those into a single post. Wasabi – Wide Open An […]
Elephant Revival – It’s Alive
At some point in just about everyone’s life you meet someone, usually of the opposite sex, who you realize is just so sophisticated and charismatic that you have to readjust your scale for those qualities. Â At that point the cold hard truth hits you that no matter how much you practice and work at your […]
The Wood Brothers – Live, Volume 1 & 2
The best find for me in September’s AMA awards was a couple of live discs from the Wood Brothers that were included in the swag bag. Â Volume 1 is entitled Sky High, and Volume 2 is Nail & Tooth. Â Regardless of the separate names and release dates, these discs are like, well, two brothers. Â Chris […]
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2012
As probably all Twangville readers know by now, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is an Americana music festival held the first weekend in October every year in San Francisco. Â Here’s my review, followed by Chip’s. Shawn: This year there were 88 bands, on 6 stages, for 3 days, all for free, courtesy of the late Warren Hellman. […]
Americana Music Festival – What I Heard
In addition to the awards ceremony, the AMA puts on a pretty hot music festival for the 3 days following the ceremony. Â It’s a great chance to see some old favorites and hear some up & coming artists. Â Grouped by the “how” I heard them versus the “where” or “when” here are some of the […]
Americana Music Association Annual Awards
The yearly AMA awards kicked off with a bang in the delightful Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last week. Â The house band, Buddy Miller, Don Was, Larry Campbell, Brady Blade and Rami Jaffe, was joined by Booker T. Jones, who later took home the Lifetime Achievement Award for instrumentalist, on organ and Richard Thompson, Darrell Scott, […]
The Trishas – High, Wide and Handsome
More a legend than a band. Â That phrase was first coined a couple of decades ago about a set of 4 guys from West Texas, the Flatlanders. Â But it could apply equally to a group of 4 young women, The Trishas. Â First performing together as a hastily arranged act as part of a tribute to […]