Cedar Hill- New Chapter review

Cedar Hill New Chapter Mountain Fever Bluegrass can be complex. It doesn’t have to be. Simultaneously, it isn’t simple music, and it certainly isn’t easy to play. I just spent a weekend at a bluegrass festival featuring 18 acts, nine of them solid bluegrass of various shades. These groups all impressed in various ways, but…

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Bill Scorzari- The Crosswinds of Kansas review

Bill Scorzari The Crosswinds of Kansas BillScorzari.com Weird Ass Americana. That’s my jam. Whether going back years to Mary Gauthier, Sam Baker, Roscoe Holcombe, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and every bluegrass band recording prior to 1980, up to and including Willi Carlisle, Melissa Carper, Otis Gibbs, and Scott Cook, a scan of my CD shelves will…

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Dan Tyminski- One More Time Before You Go: A Tribute to Tony Rice review

Dan Tyminski One More Time Before You Go: A Tribute to Tony Rice North Star Records No one should be surprised by this project. Tony Rice was the most influential guitarist bluegrass music has produced, and that is revealed on each festival stage weekly. This past weekend, I had the pleasure to listen to Richard…

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Willi Carlisle- Peculiar, Missouri review

Willi Carlisle Peculiar, Missouri Free Dirt Records An unusual album, Peculiar, Missouri is also one of the freshest and most honest folk albums I’ve encountered the last decade. Inspired by the Ozark region we love, Willi Carlisle embraces the traditions of Guthrie, Phillips, and McCutcheon and bring the methods they mastered over decades screaming into…

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Blueberry Bluegrass Festival, 2022

Thank you to all the volunteers who made this weekend’s Blueberry Bluegrass a complete success. And even bigger thanks to all the patrons who purchased tickets, camped, bought raffle tickets and merchandise, and supported our vendors, food trucks, musicians, and the businesses of Stony Plain this weekend: the festival cannot exist without your commitment and…

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Scott Vestal, et al- Bluegrass 2022 review

Scott Vestal, et al Bluegrass 2022 Pinecastle Bluegrass 2022 is the ninth in a series of instrumental bluegrass sets featuring Scott Vestal (banjo) and whomever he is playing with at the time. The series began in 1995 and ran consecutively until 2001 before being resurrected in 2020. This latest volume features Cody Kilby (guitar), Byron…

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Jim Hurst- From the Ground Up review

Jim Hurst From the Ground Up Pinecastle It has been some many years since I last heard a Jim Hurst album. I purchased Intrepid years ago upon release, and his performance of “Dew On The Mountain” remains one of my favourites. Jim Hurst is under-known within the acoustic and bluegrass worlds despite a career of…

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Peter Rowan- Calling You From My Mountain review

Peter Rowan Calling You From My Mountain Rebel Records In various configurations and eliminating live sets, Peter Rowan has recorded well over 40 albums of new music. That’s a lot, but considering his career going back to the 60s and the quality of his experimentation, both within and outside bluegrass, not an unwelcome amount. A…

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Various Artists- Americana Railroad review

Various Artists Americana Railroad Renew/BMG Perhaps unintentionally also a tribute to previous generations of Americana artists who much earlier blazed a trail—folks like Elizabeth Cotton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Hedy West, John Stewart, Gene Clark, and a handful of others—by both covering their signature songs while adding to the rich sub-genre of train songs they and…

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The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer- Live at the King Eddy review

The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer Live at the King Eddy Tonic Records Truly, not my thing. I just haven’t enjoyed the music this outfit has released over the last decade-plus. The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer, Shawn Hall and Matthew Rogers, receive lots of non-mainstream airplay as well as festival slots, and appear to…

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