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 […]
Erinn Peet Lukes Video Premiere – Small Town Hero
I was fortunate enough to come across Erinn Peet Lukes when she came out with her first EP a couple of years ago. Since then I learned she’d been with a band for several years and they gained some notoriety with a cover of a Guns ‘n’ Roses hit. Last year they put out an […]
Austin Lucas Reflects on The Times – A Twangville Premiere
Austin Lucas has never been one to pull his punches so one shouldn’t expect him to do so now. Alive in the Hot Zone, his forthcoming album, finds him reflecting on the jarring tumult of 2020 from a unique viewpoint – an American sequestered in Germany. There, isolated from family and friends at home, he’s […]
Suzi Ragsdale Premiere – Live Until You Die Video
Sometimes you just have to give in to temptation and root for the favorite. That’s kind of how I felt when I heard Suzi Ragsdale’s new EP, Ghost Town. Suzi has toured with Guy Clark and Darrell Scott. She’s sang on over 60 albums from a who’s who of Nashville, and had her songs recorded […]
Curtis Grimes Premiere – Still A Little Country Left
Curtis Grimes is an interesting guy. Besides being Male Vocalist Of the Year a couple of years ago for the Texas Country Music Association, he models jeans, sells bibles, and acts in national TV commercials. I guess that makes him kind of an all-American kid. A lot of his music reflects that idea of a […]
Savoy Brown – Ain’t Done Yet
With Ain’t Done Yet, Savoy Brown frontman Kim Simmonds lays down the statement that his blues mastery will be around a while longer. And that’s saying something, since Savoy Brown have been around pretty much since the middle years of the British Invasion. In its original form, the band was comparable to the early Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac, Cream and […]
Garrett Owen – Quiet Lives
With Labor Day now in the rearview mirror, life gets more serious. Students are back in school, work projects pick up, winter is coming. Even the chaos of 2020 isn’t changing that cycle. As it happens, singer-songwriter Garrett Owen is releasing a good accompaniment to buckling down, his second full length album, Quiet Lives. The […]
Kelley Swindall – You Can Call Me Darlin’ If You Want
Regret is an interesting emotion. For some people, it’s a melancholy tickle in the back of their mind. For others, it’s a pair of blinders that forces them straight ahead when they have so many choices. Finally, some use regret as the engine that propels them to greater heights. On her new album, You Can […]
Admiral Radio – Sounds Like You
It’s funny how you can get attached to an item over time, appreciating it first for what it physically is, and then over time for what it represents. South Carolina natives Becca Smith and Coty Hoover had that experience with a 1941 Admiral Radio. As they learned more about the antique and how it related […]