There’s definitely a generational thing that happens with music. You grow up listening to what your parents like until you’re old enough to develop your own style. Frequently that’s the opposite of what you heard through childhood. By early adulthood you start to appreciate the older music, and by midlife it’s part of your playlist […]
Hannah Connolly – Shadowboxing
Making mixtapes for friends was an active hobby for those of us working in college radio back in the day. Turns out hoping to broaden someone else’s musical horizons wasn’t unique to FM DJ’s, and the mixtape, albeit no longer a tape, is still thriving. So it’s kind of heartwarming that even musicians find inspiration […]
Ruby Joyful – The Pie Chart of Love
Bluegrass has always had a large family element to it. From sitting around picking with friends and relatives to packing the clan into the camper for a weekend festival, it’s frequently a multi-generational activity. That’s as true today as it was fifty years ago–witness the story behind Colorado duet/band, Ruby Joyful. Co-founder Dan Rubinoff lived […]
My Black Country – The Songs of Alice Randall
What do you get when Allison Russell, Rhiannon Giddens, Valerie June and others get together to sing songs by an underappreciated black songwriter on John Prine’s label? My Black Country – The Songs of Allice Randall. Alice Randall has been writing country music songs for decades. Though hers isn’t exactly a household name, she’s been […]
Jake Trevor Song Premiere – Coffee and Wine
I’ve always admired talented buskers. I can’t imagine a harder audience than a bunch of people who just view you as an obstacle to getting where they’re going. And yet, there is almost always a music fan or two who delay their plans to just stop and enjoy the song. Sometimes you see a few […]
Barnstar! shows us their FURIOUS KINDNESS!
Raucous! Foot-stomping! Joyful! I mean… C’mon! These are some of the first words that come to mind to describe Barnstar!’s new record, “Furious Kindness.” The bluegrass supergroup consists of Mark Erelli, Zachariah Hickman, Jake Armerding, Taylor Armerding, and Charlie Rose. Their last album came out in 2016 and this one has been worth the wait. […]
Eric Bibb – Live at the Scala Theatre Stockholm
Taj Mahal … Keb’ Mo’ … Corey Harris … Guy Davis … Otis Taylor … Eric Bibb. These guys, along with a few others, are the vanguard of modern acoustic blues. With all of them, but especially with Bibb, listeners can be sure that every recording, every performance matters. Bibb’s new live album shows the […]
Clayton Ryan Song Premiere – Wild Man
Ray Wylie Hubbard once said that good poets didn’t have good childhoods. I’m sure that was a broad commentary on how adversity can be the inspiration an artist of any kind uses to shape their work. A brilliant case in point is the upcoming album from Minneapolis singer/songwriter Clayton Ryan, entitled Ghost Town. He took […]
Nick Gravenites – Rogue Blues
Nick Gravenites is cool. For his instinct for finding the moment, particularly back in the 1960s, I’d liken him to Neal Cassady,* the counter-culture icon who was taken into the beatnik fold in 1950s New York by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (the character Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s On the Road was said to be […]
Victoria Liedtke and Jason Ringenberg – More Than Words can Tell
Victoria Liedtke and Jason Ringenberg have paired their voices to create an album of duets. However, why just do ordinary duets when you can dial up the challenge? They decided to take on the duets of legends Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner for a new album, “More Than Words Can Tell”. Outside of George Jones […]