Courtney Marie Andrews has been shifting her sound to a more 70s down-tempo style for a while it seems. On her latest album “May Your Kindness Remain,” Andrews explores slower speeds and luckily her voice is up to the task of holding up the song on its own. Andrews’ voice draws a comparison to Neko […]
Colter Wall/March 8, 2018/New Brookland Tavern/West Columbia, SC
A near sold out show on a Thursday night in West Columbia, South Carolina is a rare thing. A 22 year old armed only with his guitar doing this is even rarer. But, we’re not talking about any 22 year old, we’re talking about Colter Wall, who’s voice recalls the great baritones of country and western […]
Mayer’s Playlist for Winter 2018, Part 2
Simple Scenes, Marie/Lepanto (from the Big Legal Mess Records release Tenkiller) It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster (Water Liars) and Will Johnson (Centro-Matic et al) named their new project after a rural road sign that marks an intersection near two Arkansas towns (Marie and Lepanto). Tenkiller exudes a sense of […]
Vivian Leva – Time Is Everything
Terroir. Â It’s a word used in wine tasting to denote a wine that really tastes of its place. Â On her debut album, Time Is Everything, Virginia-native Vivian Leva delivers the musical equivalent of terroir. Â She doesn’t just sing in the style of Appalachia, it oozes from the pores of the songs. The record starts with […]
Mayer’s Playlist for Winter 2018, Part 1
Time Will Be the Healer, Glen Hansard (from the Anti- Records release Between Two Shores) Songwriting is arguably a numbers game. For many artists, the quantity of songs released is a fraction of those that are written. It’s a shame, really, as some quality songs can get left on the shelf gathering dust. For his […]
Folk Alliance 2018 – Shawn’s Picks
With over 3000 showcases in 4 nights, and perhaps an average of 5 gigs/musician, it was of course impossible to see the roughly 600 acts that works out from that math. Â So when I say these were my favorites, it’s from a relatively small sampling. Â Nonetheless, I saw some great music. Â What’s Old Is New […]
Folk Alliance International – The Best Music Festival You’ve Never Heard About
With slightly less than 4000 attendees, the annual gathering of Folk Alliance International is still small enough to be held in a hotel. Â It doesn’t have a stadium-draw headliner, but other than that and lack of a campground, there’s everything else you’d want in a music festival. Â And most of it is done better than […]
Waterloo Sunset – AmericanaFest UK 2018
If you’ve ever traveled to another country, you know the quiz well. Border control agent: “So, what brings you to (insert country name here)?†What you may be less familiar with is the variety of quizzical expressions you get from those border control agents when you’re traveling to England and your answer is: “an Americana […]
Jason Isbell – Divine Providence
“How did we not know about this show?” my wife said to me. “I have no idea.” Even though we have two little ones under four and rarely make it out to shows (when we used to attend three or four regularly per week), a Jason Isbell show is an event. His songwriting, particularly since […]
Steep Canyon Rangers – Out In the Open
One of the more anticipated albums recently around the Twangville offices is the new one from Steep Canyon Rangers.  Out In the Open finally hit our hard drives a couple of weeks ago andI got a chance to ask banjo player and lead vocalist Graham Sharp a few questions about the record.  What really came through […]