Reviews

I wasn’t prepared for what happened the first time I hit play on Irene Kelley’s new CD, Pennsylvania Coal. I’ve known and admired her work as a songwriter and I knew from reading the liner notes that the picking would be

I remember as a teenager, I was riding home in my dad's blue pickup truck when he told me to pick out a CD from the console for us to listen to. Surprisingly, the CD collection which Dad kept in

In the 1990s, there was a very popular sound in bluegrass featuring smooth male vocals and a polished, contemporary sound. Ronnie Bowman was perhaps the prime exemplar of this style. The projects he recorded, both with Lonesome River Band and

Though numerous countries across Europe are home to bluegrass musicians, the Czech Republic seems to be one of the most popular lately. Faculty members from East Tennessee State University recently released a documentary chronicling the bluegrass scene within the country,

On their Facebook page, recently formed San Francisco-based band Old Belle claims that even though they don’t hail from Kentucky’s coal country and weren’t formed during the folk boom of the 1960s, their music is still “unapologetically folk.” Judging from

Rhonda Vincent’s Only Me, released yesterday (1/28), settles a longstanding debate: Is she country or is she bluegrass? The answer found on this delicious recording is a resounding yes. There’s something for everybody: Six bluegrass cuts on one CD, six country

The Game. A simple two-word phrase used to describe a myriad of things, often sporting events. It conjures up images of NBA Finals, National Championships, World Series, and Super Bowls - events which seem larger than life. However, what if

Although old-time music has recently experienced a surge in popularity, most of the groups who bill themselves as old-time are of the string band variety, with a focus on banjo and fiddle music. An instrument that’s often neglected in the

There’s quite an interesting progressive bluegrass scene in and around the Rocky Mountains these days, thanks in part to Planet Bluegrass and its festivals like Telluride and Rockygrass. One of the most recent bluegrass-tinged bands to emerge from the Colorado

Kentucky Traveler - My Life in Music by Ricky Skaggs, with Eddie Dean I enjoyed Ricky Skaggs’ autobiography Kentucky Traveler, so help me, I really did. When I first heard of it I was skeptical, and afraid it would be sort of