Reviews
Paper Flowers
Tim O’Brien has been a fixture in contemporary bluegrass ever since fronting the band Hot Rize starting back in the late 1970s. Along the way, he’s collaborated with everyone from fellow West Virginian Kath Mattea to Steve Martin and Alison Brown. He’s also penned songs for a number of Nashville’s leading lights. For the last…
Shelby Means
Kentucky-born, Wyoming-raised Shelby Means has been around the music biz for a while. She’s a former member of the acclaimed band Della Mae and more recently has served as the bass player with Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. Thus, it’s no surprise that her debut album is such an accomplished and assured outing. Means has…
Volume 4
As the title suggests, this is the 4th album release from Kane and Gellert, two artists with long careers in Americana-Roots music. The music is spontaneous and often sparse, guitar and fiddle or two guitars with light percussion supporting the vocals. Originals flow easily into traditional tunes, due perhaps, to their ability to write such…
In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985
Country Music Foundation Press, 2024 Geoffrey Himes has written about music for the Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Jazz Times, and Sing Out since the late 1970s, as well as a book about Bruce Springsteen. He was a contributing editor at No Depression from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, and his articles have…
Mason Via
Mason Via’s arrival on the scene as a solo artist has caused quite a stir, and deservedly so. He has an expressive and engaging tenor voice and a penchant for poignant original love songs with adroit lyrics and nearly irresistible hooks. The North Carolina native is an alumnus of Old Crow Medicine Show and his…
Neste Steg (Next Step)
Strengeplukk (“string plucking”) is the newest release from this talented band based in Stavanger, Norway. They consist of Andreas Barnes Onarhiem (mandolin, vocals), Jakob Folke Ossum (guitar, vocals), Mikael Jonassen (banjo, vocals), Nikolai Storevik (fiddle, vocals), and Vidar Starheimsaeter (bass, vocals). Formed in 2015, the group has become one of Norway’s top bluegrass bands combining…