All across America, in places where the asphalt having a shoulder elevates it to highway status, there stand big metal buildings with gravel parking lots. Twenty-first century honky-tonks, they feature cheap beer, fried food, and a band playing country music. Besides the style of music, a differentiator of those bands is their enthusiasm. You don’t […]
Old Town Crier – I’m Longing For You Honey In Middleboro, Mass
One of the good things that’s come out of the pandemic is that quite a few musicians, normally consumed full-time with being part of a band, have used the time to challenge themselves and make a solo record. Sometimes the musical style veers afield from what their band normally plays. One of the better examples […]
The Shootouts – Bullseye
Not long after Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakum and their ilk starting reclaiming authentic roots music, a band formed out of a chance meeting in a bar took the idea a step further. BR549 was honky-tonk, rockabilly and Texas swing; and an attitude your mom told you to fear. Needless to say they developed a […]
Chris Cain – Raisin’ Cain
You probably have not heard of Chris Cain. That’s a shame, because, if Raisin’ Cain is typical of his work, we all should know about this guy. But Cain is one of those road-tested musicians whose reputation spreads among other musicians. A long-time fixture in the California blues scene, Cain received W.C. Handy (Blues Music […]
New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers, Vol. 2
Sequels are so often disappointing, but not this time. Last October, Stony Plain released a great set of jam sessions featuring blues masters Charlie Musselwhite and Alvin Youngblood Hart, together with former Squirrel Nut Zipper Jimbo Mathus, North Mississippi Allstars brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson and their father Jim that were recorded in 2007. Now, […]
Rylan Brooks – If Wishes Were Horses
Most of us have done a cross country road trip at least once, and you don’t forget it. Especially if it included a long stretch between the Rockies and the Mississippi, where time and distance create a kind of elasticity to your plan. Doing those trips over and over and over became the rehearsal space […]
Ervin Stellar – Nothing To Prove
I love it when an artist takes someone else’s well-known song and so transforms the piece that they start to own it more than the original artist or songwriter. Ervin Stellar, the stage name of Andrew Jordan, does that on his new EP with Shanty, the Jonathan Edwards classic. Stellar injects such a nonchalant tempo […]
Folk Alliance Int’l – Folk Unlocked Preview
For most of the last several years I’ve flown back east for what I consider to be the most under-appreciated music festival in the country; the annual Folk Alliance International conference. FAI does a tremendous amount of good for musicians, and the conference itself has many seminars targeted to beginners, long-time musicians and industry professionals. […]
Selwyn Birchwood – Living in a Burning House
I caught Selwyn Birchwood’s act a few years ago at the Philly Folk Festival (remember when we could go to festivals?), and I was immediately won over by the barefoot bluesman. Already an award winning guitarist, Living in a Burning House cements his credentials as one of the leading younger lights in the blues world. […]
Beth Lee – Waiting On You Tonight
I have a friend who likes to say that people need to get repotted every now and then. They get root-bound and need a new container to explore, and some new scenery. I’ve found that to be mostly true. Beth Lee seems to have also found benefit in that. After spending her early career as […]