I’ve been writing reviews for over a decade, and I listen to a bunch of things I never write about. Plus, stints on the radio and owning too many records. In all that time, I’ve never heard an album start and end with the same song, only in English and Russian. I have now. Better […]
Mayer’s Playlist for Fall 2020, Part 2
Fine, Bonnie Whitmore (from the Aviatrix Records release Last Will & Testament) Bonnie Whitmore lulls you in with a chorus of harmonies on the opening track to her latest album. But before one can settle into the lushness, a fuzzy bass, quickly joined by ominous strings and a resonating electric guitar, interrupts to create a […]
Greg Felden Premiere – Back of the Line
Back last summer I ran across the debut album from LA-based Greg Felden. I noted at the time he set an emotional tone with the songs and several of them were driven by a rock and roll guitar sound. He also did a bit of introspection on some of the acoustic numbers. Well, he’s turned […]
Sam Morrow – Gettin By On Gettin Down
Sam Morrow’s previous release “Concrete and Mud†walked the line between Country and Rock. This made sense given the songwriter was Texas born but had moved to Los Angeles. He was definitely fusing his roots with his newfound locale on the record. It was also a successful fusion and garnered much critical acclaim. On his […]
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2020
I already knew the Hellman family had challenged the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass staff to come up with a worthy alternative to the annual musical gathering in Golden Gate Park the first weekend in October. I knew they had been shooting video with various artists in music towns like Austin, Nashville, and of course San Francisco. […]
Thriving Roots 2020 – Shawn’s Highlights
One of the highlights of my year is the annual Americana Music Association conference and awards show in Nashville in September. Needless to say, it didn’t go on this year. The AMA brain trust had enough time, and common sense pragmatism, to realize this was going to happen. So they put on an alternate, virtual […]
Brendan & the Strangest Ways – Are We Sure the Dawn Is Coming?
As documented by everyone from Ken Burns on down, country music came out of the fields of the South and the mountains of Appalachia. Alt-country, on the other hand, has its roots in the urban centers of the Rust Belt, like St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburg. Based on the new album from Brendan & the […]
Mayer’s Playlist for Fall 2020, Part 1
Remember It, The Northern Belle (from the Die With Your Boots On Records release We Wither, We Bloom) You’d never know from their music that The Northern Belle hails from Norway. Their brand of Americana is bathed in Southern California sunshine in more ways than one. This is music warm and lavish, not to mention […]
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Preview
Twenty years ago next week a San Francisco musician and financier, Warren Hellman, arranged a birthday concert for his sister, a big bluegrass fan. The next year, as part of a bid to get Emmylou to play, Hellman included a modifier to the concert’s name, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was official. Since then the event […]
Feels like Josh Ritter Gave me a Mansion!
Upbeat Josh Ritter is my favorite Josh Ritter. Give me songs like “Right Moves”, “Snow is Gone”, and “Young Moses” any day. Your head will start bopping and you’ll find yourself smiling without knowing why. His new EP “See Here, I Have Built You a Mansion” is a gift to all of us trying to […]