Reviews

Since his 2019 debut with the album North Country, Irish-born Danny Burns has received his share of accolades. He possesses a robust baritone and a deft songwriter’s eye and ear for emotional detail that lends itself well to his unique blend of Celtic, folk, country and bluegrass music. Burns’s new album features a pair of…

Colorado and the Midwest have always been locations where bluegrass music has flourished. The bands from that area have based their sound on bluegrass but have also been known for pushing the edges of the music. High Lonesome is one of these newer groups that do just that. Founded in 2018 by guitarist Chuck Sitero,…

Fred Carpenter is a well-known and well-respected fiddle player. While starting out on the classical violin, he spent time studying the styles of folks like Kenny Baker, Vassar Clement, Byron Berline, and others. He has played with bluegrass artists like Tony Rice and The Dillards, and others like Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea and George Strait….

The members of Carolina Bluegrass Style are based in the Columbia, South Carolina area, but spend most of their performing time in the venues around the area of Ashville, making them true to their Carolina name. The band consists of founding member Tommy Thomas (bass), along with Don Ashley (fiddle, vocals), Tyler Chasteen (guitar, vocals),…

The band is the brain-child of Portland, Oregon native Kenny Feinstein, who spent the past 15 years putting this group together. His original band was the Water Tower Bucket Boys which then became the Water Tower String band. He moved to Los Angeles in 2018 and reformed into the current Water Tower, whose members are…

Don Rigsby has had a distinguished, if rather nomadic career over the four decades covered by this retrospective. He’s released a half dozen or so solo albums and been in and out of as many bands – J.D. Crowe, the Bluegrass Cardinals, the Lonesome River Band, Rock County, and Longview among them. This rock-solid song…