A niece once pronounced to me that all the great blues musicians are dead. Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy Davis and Corey Harris show that’s not true, as they are among the best blues masters of my own generation. With Fight On! True Blues Vol. 2, these masters have created an acoustic blues timepiece that is […]
Tim Nielsen of Drivin N Cryin on Pop-up Gigs and Merch Sales
Tim Nielsen of southern rock stalwarts Drivin N Cryin talks about how he keeps busy, what sustains the band financially, and what the band’s drummer eats most nights while on tour.
Ben Musser Song Premiere – Sentimental Fever
Like all things artistic, it’s hard to predict where one’s musical muse is going to be. A lot of musicians find a move into some beautiful surroundings provides the necessary inspiration–there’s nothing like Mother Nature to open your mind to the wonders of life. Wyoming resident Ben Musser found the opposite. After spending years in […]
Monday Morning Video – Dallas House Show Preview
There’s something about a Sunday afternoon in a Dallas backyard — relaxed, sunny, the kind of day that makes you remember why you love live music in the first place. We’ve been lucky enough to host some incredible artists at the Sunday Social over the years, and if we’re being honest, we’ve gotten a little […]
Now & Then: Charley Crockett’s Age of the Ram and the reach of Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Charley Crockett’s Age of the Ram arrives as the third and final entry in his Sagebrush Trilogy, a 20-song, 45-minute set built around the outlaw figure Billy McLane and cut again with Shooter Jennings in Los Angeles. The obvious move would be to compare it to some other modern revivalist country record, but Crockett is aiming farther back than that. This album is trying to turn country songs into a movie, or maybe into the memory of one, and that points straight to Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, the 1959 western cornerstone that helped teach later songwriters how to make myth feel personal.
Andy Hedges – The Westerner
It used to be called country & western. Then two or three decades ago, for reasons I’m sure the ethnographers still debate, it just became country music. Western just sort of slipped out of the vernacular, except for maybe a strip of North America from around Calgary to somewhere near El Paso. Fortunately, there’s still […]
Readers’ Pick: Charley Crockett – Age of the Ram
You picked Charley Crockett – Age of the Ram as your favorite new release for the week of April 3, 2026.
Krislyn Arthurs Song Premiere – Missin’ Man
When you grow up in a small town you learn young that one thing you’ll never have is anonymity. So you quickly figure out how to smile and be polite because you just can’t avoid anyone. That does not mean people don’t make bad decisions, and then live with the results of those choices. Krislyn […]
Built with an Old Hammer: Dale Watson’s Honky-Tonk Truth
Photo: Jacob Blinkentaff For Dale Watson, music started at home, not on a stage. It came from the next room, early in the morning, when his father picked up a guitar. “I would wake up to my dad playing,” Watson says. That introduction opened the door to a lifetime of listening. Records spun by George […]
Studio Spotlight/1809 Studios, Dave Drago
We recently checked in with Dave at 1809 at had a great interview. Hope you enjoy! Where is the studio located? Macedon, NY (20 Minutes east of Rochester)A solar-powered recording studio is housed inside a re-purposed, 19th-century Erie Canalside Tavern. In a nice off-the-beaten-path kind of location, while still close to any amenities one needs. […]