Carlene Carter, “Carter Girl” Rounder Records (for HVBA) I have an unerring fascination with the Carter Family—or more precisely the Original Carter Family—because everything about their professional lives as musicians (or “musicianers” […]
Revisiting the Fold
Brush With Greatness
A piece I submitted to JazzFM was read on air this week as part of their “Brush with Greatness” series. It is posted to their site. The full text is also copied below. […]
Special Consensus, “Country Boy”
(For HVBA) About a year ago, a tribute album to John Denver was released which was, in a word, awful. I reviewed it for KDHX radio, which was kind of fun, actually, given […]
Tony Trischka’s “Great Big World”
(For KDHX) I wanted to love this album, and I’m having a hard time with it even now, because saying something negative about it is akin to sacrilege. Trischka has always been […]
Rhonda Vincent, “Only Me”
(For HVBA) I was once helping with a satellite feed of the Kruger Brothers early one morning at Merlefest—the local television station was airing live segments from a hill overlooking the festival grounds—and […]
Blue Highway, “The Game”
(for KDHX) I think every bluegrass band could take a lesson from Blue Highway, and here’s why I think that is: they put the content, and the storytelling, before everything else. And, frankly, […]
The Grascals, “When I Get My Pay”
The Grascals are as capable as any bluegrass band out there these days. They know what they are doing, and they are doing it well. They were the IBMA emerging artists of […]
A new approach to an old problem
(For Mac Peds) MAC-Obesity is using teamwork to identify and treat obesity.
Best of 2013
(for KDHX) This has felt like the official year of “well, it’s about time!” recordings. There seemed to be so many albums from really top flight players who haven’t released anything in, […]
O’Brien and Scott’s “Memories and Moments”
(for KDHX) The thing about Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott is that each project comes with the feeling that you’re joining a show already in progress. That’s true of their latest studio […]
Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe
(for KDHX) I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love everything about this album. The only way to make it any better would be to have it autographed. […]
Interview with James Alan Shelton
Update: When this piece was posted, Shelton emailed saying “I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful story. It was one of the best I’ve ever had done […]
The Definitive Doc Watson
(HVBA) You can be forgiven for thinking, “Do we really need another collection of Doc Watson recordings?” When I heard of this release, that’s what I thought. My initial impression was that […]
Old Time 101
(KDHX) Today we call the kind of music that Rhys Jones, Jeff Miller, and Jim Nelson play “old-time music,” though that wasn’t always ever thus. Prior to the 1920s, it was just […]
Second Time Around
(ParentsCanada; CBC) For most people looking down the barrel of retirement, the thought of having another baby isn’t one they’re willing to entertain. Yet when Steve Heming said “I do” three years […]
Revisiting Tommy Dorsey
When we were teenagers we defined ourselves through the music that we listened to, and I suppose that that is something which remains true for teens today. I wouldn’t have been caught […]
Now what?
(McMaster University Department of Pediatrics) As a nation, we’re getting heavier with each passing year, and the health effects of obesity—from depression to heart attacks to some forms of cancer—are on the […]
Don Rigsby’s “Doctor’s Orders”
(HVBA) Don Rigsby has been around a while, and as such he always seems to be there, not too far away. Many probably came across him for the first time in the […]
Adam Steffey’s “New Primitive”
(HVBA) The first track on Adam Steffey’s new album New Primitive opens with a pop music flourish of a kind that you don’t typically find on oldtime albums. It’s a statement that […]
It’s a Mom’s World
(CBC Kids) Steve Colbert once said that stay-at- home dads are “against nature’s laws.” Your grandmother probably thinks that, too.
Ron Block’s “Walking Song”
(HVBA) Listening to this disc, I wished that I had no idea who Ron Block is or any of the things he’s done in his career. By any measure, he’s done a […]
“Tell the Ones I Love” by the Steep Canyon Rangers
(HVBA) Culturally, we seem to like the idea of the struggling artist, someone who suffers for their work and who’s work seems to benefit from the struggle that goes into it. Would […]
Cindy Woolf’s “May”
(KDHX) People who live in St. Louis are lucky for lots of reasons, not the least of which being KDHX. I know that sounds self-serving, but it’s true. And here’s one reason […]
Two spring releases from Compass Records
(KDHX) It’s a truism that musicians don’t make the best business people, and there are examples galore to prove it, from the very heights of the industry on down. Alison Brown, however, […]
The Spinney Brothers’ “No Borders”
(HVBA) Dick Bowden recently wrote a compelling cover story about the Spinney Brothers for Bluegrass Unlimited. Titled “On the road with the Spinney Brothers” (April, 2013) Bowden gives an account of one […]
The Snyder Family’s “Building Bridges”
(HVBA) There is a novelty to being a family band, just as there is a novelty to being very young yet sounding like someone who has been playing for decades. There was […]
Peter Rowan “The Old School”
(KDHX) At times, Peter Rowan seems like the Zelig of roots music. In the course of his long career, Rowan has been a bluegrass boy, a new-age Buddhist mystic and truly everything […]
Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, “Love Has Come for You”
(HVBA) When I first saw a note about this album online, I had to do a double take as it seems like an odd pairing.
Review, “The Music is You: a tribute to John Denver”
(KDHX) There are lots of tribute albums around, though they are a curious bird. The assumption we make as consumers is that the people who contribute do so because they were inspired […]
Ashes
When I arrived at my mother’s house she was still getting ready. I asked if I could take the things out to the car. There were three boxes of clothes—some of which […]
Review: Della Mae, “This World Oft Can Be”
(HVBA) Well, if you want to get on my good side, cover a song from Laura Boosinger, and indeed that’s how Della Mae starts this collection. “Letter from Down the Road” is […]
Review: Dailey and Vincent’s “Brothers of the Highway”
(HVBA) There are lots of good bluegrass albums, and there are a few great ones. There are also some that stand out even above those ones, and this new release from Dailey […]
Interview with Greg Cahill
(HVBA) Greg Cahill is, in so many ways, the embodiment of bluegrass music: honest, friendly, and in it not because he wants to be, necessarily, but because he has to be. I […]
Heidi Talbot’s “Angels without Wings”
(KDHX) Here’s how every review of Heidi Talbot opens: Talbot is from County Kildare, Ireland, and famously was a member of the Irish-American all-female supergroup Cherish the Ladies. The reviews for her […]
Interview with Chris Eldridge
(KDHX) I reached guitarist Chris Eldridge at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., during a break from a tour that will eventually bring Punch Brothers to St. Louis and the Sheldon Concert Hall […]
Audie Blaylock and Redline, “Hard Country”
(HVBA) One reviewer noted of Audie Blaylock that he “puts music before image.” If you’ve seen the cover of his latest album, Hard Country, you’ll see some of the truth of that […]
Jim Lauderdale’s “Carolina Moonrise”
(HVBA) Whenever I approach the music of Jim Lauderdale I find myself reconsidering that question that we’ve all mulled over at one time or anther: Just what is bluegrass, anyway?
John Driskell Hopkins and Balsam Range, “Daylight”
(HVBA) It’s pretty much impossible to discuss John Driskell Hopkins without discussing Zac Brown, and there are a number of reasons for that. Brown, though still young, is one of those people […]
Choosing your baby’s gender: Separating science from fiction
(ParentsCanada) In 1996, Monique and Scott Collins were among the first couples in North America to choose the gender of their child. It’s called family balancing and they took advantage of medical […]
Making the most of every day
(Kruger Brothers online) Skip Vetter was a very dear friend of the Kruger Brothers, one who offered his talents to a number of their projects, including the cover art for the second […]
The Hillbenders live at KDHX
(KDHX) Jerry Garcia once said that the Grateful Dead are like licorice — some people don’t like licorice, but those who like it like it a lot. I think that’s a category […]
Best albums of 2012
(KDHX) Lots of people might look at this list might say, “Who are all these people?” In roots/Americana music, and at my house, they’re stars. These albums are examples why.
The Deerings and the American Dream
Published in the Kruger Brothers Newsletter, December 2012. It’s one of the great stories in the history of fretted instrument building in the US: In 1970 Sam Radding began a small manufacturing […]
Old Man Luedecke’s “Tender is the Night”
(KDHX) Tender Is the Night is the fifth solo collection from Old Man (Chris) Luedecke, and it feels like some of the musical ideas he’s been working with are really beginning to […]
Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott’s “We’re Usually a Lot Better than This”
(KDHX) In 2000 Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott released “Real Time,” a gorgeous album of duets by two complete masters of instrumentation, arrangement, and performance. Beautiful. Then they toured it, and pretty […]
An interview with Darrell Scott
(KDHX) There are no easy labels for Darrell Scott. In his career he’s been a first-call session musician in Nashville, a songwriter, performer, collaborator and producer — and he recently toured with […]
Signs of the season
Published in What’s Up: Canada’s Family Magazine, Holiday 2012 Christmas isn’t just decorations and presents. Some other signs of the season are, unfortunately, injury and illness. Especially at the holidays, you can […]
A Fiddler’s Holiday, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Family Band
(HVBA) Partnering with an orchestra seems to be the thing to do these days. Bela Fleck did it last year with his concerto, as did the Kruger Brothers, as did Ricky Skaggs […]
Claire Lynch, “Hills of Alabam”
(HVBA) While “The Hills of Alabam” is a new release, the material all dates from the early 1980s or thereabouts—it’s a compilation of material from two Front Porch String Band albums (the […]
Mark O’Connor and Rieko Aizawa, “American Classics”
(KDHX) I think it’s probably safe to say that this album won’t appear on many year-end best of 2012 lists this year, likely because it’s really a kind of teaching tool: a […]
