**NOTE: Contest is now closed. You can still participate but will no longer be eligible for the giveaway.** Tis the season for holiday music and its time to giveaway another great recent release. This time around it comes to us via Cincinnati based Over the Rhine with their new Christmas album Snow Angels. To be […]
Win Mindy Smith’s “My Holiday”, CD Giveaway
**NOTE: Contest is now closed. You can still participate but will no longer be eligible for the giveaway.** You could say that Mindy Smith was born to sing Christmas songs. The adopted daughter of a pastor and his wife who raised her in Long Island, NY. No doubt her Christian upbringing played into her interest […]
Deadstring Brothers – Live @ Zydeco Birmingham, AL
I always thought how inspiring it must be for a musician to walk on stage in fromt of 12,000 screaming fans. But what about when it is 12 fans? How inspiring is that? Pretty damn inspiring if the Deadstring Brothers are any example. In reality there were more than 12 people at Zydeco two nights […]
Bill Williams, Artist Discovery (and Giveaway!)
**NOTE: Contest is now closed. You can still participate but will no longer be eligible for the giveaway.** DC area artist Bill Williams, whom you may have previously seen in the capitol area with such bands as Last Train Home, Kevin Johnson and the Linemen and The Grandsons, recently released his first solo effort. The […]
North By Northwest
Recently I have run across some music by a few artists from the Northwest and Canada. Canadian artists are often ignored in this country, but there is a healthy music scene in Canada. Canada’s music roster includes a wide ranging group of songwriters, from the obscure country of Corb Lund to musical Icons like Bruce […]
Josh Roberts and the Hinges/My War Cry is Amor
The most highly anticipated local release of this year (in my book anyway…and by local I’m referring to Columbia, South Carolina) was the sophomore effort of Josh Roberts and the Hinges which hit the streets last month. The band’s first release, 2006’s The Sugarbird Test, was a rollicking effort of 11 originals clocking in at […]
Merle Haggard – The Bluegrass Sessions
It seems a lot of artists are jumping on the acoustic bandwagon and putting out Bluegrass albums these days. So it would be real easy for such an album to get lost in the shuffle. Not so when the artist is Merle Haggard. In fact, you have no choice but to listen. Recorded at Ricky […]
Gary Allan/Living Hard
After listening to the first half of Gary Allan’s new album, Living Hard, I decided I’d do some market research. I had honestly never heard of Gary, but seeing that his record was on MCA Nashville I knew he was probably in good company. And it turns out that I was right. Other artists on the […]
Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time – Took Down and Put Up
Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time have recently released an excellent Bluegrass album Took Down and Put Up on Lonesome Day records. The album debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts and will certainly move toward the top before it is through. Most widely known as a songwriter, rural Kentucky native Larry Cordle […]
Drew Gibson/Letterbox
Listening to Drew Gibson’s new album, Letterbox, I thought, “This sounds nothing like Lyle Lovett’s new disc.” Why in the hell I thought that I have no idea. But I did. Then I thought, “Gibson’s disc sounds just as much like Lovett’s new disc as I sound like Lucinda Williams.” And folks, just for the […]