Reviews
Drivin’ The Blue
While the band is based in the Washington, DC area, the members are from Northern Virginia, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. They include Wally Hughes (guitar, fiddle, resonator guitar, vocals), Lisa Kay Howard Hughes (mandolin, vocals), James Field (guitar, vocals). Joe Hannabach (bass), and Ed Lick (banjo, steel, mandolin). Individually they have performed with…
That Old Mountain
Songwriter Byron Hill is originally from the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina but settled in Nashville in 1978 where he had been pitching his songs since 1976. Since then, his songs have been picked up and recorded by a long list of both bluegrass and country artists to include Special Consensus, Lonesome River Band, Seldom…
The Never Ending Years
A former IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the year and national mandolin champion, Thomas Cassell has performed with everyone from Billy Strings and Jim Lauderdale to Missy Raines, Becky Buller and Bryan Sutton. His latest album, and follow-up to his 2028 instrumental collection Voyager reveals Cassell’s impressive talents as both a singer and lyricist. There’s a…
Wall Dogs
Tim Stafford’s and Thomm Jutz’s sophomore album is kind of like a songwriting class on CD. They really show how it’s done. Jutz, a prolific writer and former IBMA Songwriter of the Year, does in fact lecture on songwriting at Nashville’s Belmont University. Stafford, also a an IBMA Songwriter of the Year, is a former…
Old Juniper
This is a trio based in the Brooklyn, New Yorik area and consists of Walker Shepard (vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle), Jackson Lynch (vocals, fiddle, guitar, banjo), and Eli Smith (banjo, guitar, banjo-mandolin, pump organ, harmonica), however Walker Shepard has since relocated to Wisconsin. There is also guest artist Hannah Shepard on cello. This is the…
I Heard The Morgan Bell
Brandon Godman is a fiddle player and luthier based in San Francisco, California. Originally from Kentucky, Godman spent time in Cincinnati and Nashville learning his playing and instrument making skills. Along the way he has played with such artists as Melvin Goins, Dale Ann Bradley, Doyle Lawson, and David Peterson, among others, and he has…