Reviews

Pick and Howl, winners of the 2022 Rockygrass band competition, cites its influences as coming from across the stylistic board: from Flatt & Scruggs and Billy Strings, to the Grateful Dead and Townes Van Zandt.   The band wears these influences well, with provocative original songs and robust vocals and harmonies underpinned by a super-charged…

If there was a bluegrass mandolin hall of fame, there is no doubt that John Reischman would have a plaque on the wall.  He is not only an extremely innovative player, but his clean notes, rich tone, fluidity and expert use of dynamics are what every serious mandolin player strives to achieve.  He has set…

Barbara Martin Stephens met Jimmy Martin in 1953 when Martin was working with Bill Monroe.  She lived with Jimmy Martin from 1953 until 1966.   Her story of that relationship was told in a book that the University of Illinois Press put out in 2017, titled Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life…

How does a band with a legendary status continue to live up to the mythology that inevitably grows and threatens to overshadow any new recording? The legendary Seldom Scene answer the question with their new album that positively glows with the same causal brilliance that has always been a hallmark of the group. The line…

Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg the husband and wife duo known as Nefesh Mountain have sent a love letter of hope and possibility to the world with their new album. The release is a double disc set of songs that exemplify the old adage of “Three Chords And The Truth” and while there may be…

When rising bluegrass stars The Price Sisters posted an impromptu field recording of “Weary Lonesome Blues” to their Facebook page last year, they had no idea it would reach more than one million viewers worldwide. One reason for its success was that the videographer used a new mic from Audigo Labs that clearly and crisply…