Reviews

THE BROMBIES RUNNING WITH THE HERD ADINA 1003 It has been six and a half years since their last release and this is also the last project that the talented bassist and songwriter Bill Bryson worked on prior to his passing in 2017. The Brombies are George Doering (mandolin), Jo Ellen Doering (vocals), Patrick Sauber…

HOWDY’S TUNES! FIDDLE MUSIC OF BIG HOWDY FORRESTER BY GAYEL PITCHFORD. (Viewpoint Press, PMB 400, 785 Tucker Rd., Ste. G, Tehachapi, CA 93561, www.howdyforrester.com) About ten years after the publication of her book, Fiddler Of The Opry: The Howdy Forrester Story, Pitchford presents us with a book of transcriptions of Big Howdy’s tunes, about fifty of…

MIKE BENTLEY ALL I’VE GOT Union House Records UHR-0003 Mike Bentley is from eastern Kentucky, Pike County to be specific, a region that has produced some of the best bluegrass and country musicians of the last century. Bentley has played bluegrass music since he was a teenager, in bands including Ernie Thacker & Route 23,…

ERIC STRICKLAND BLACK AND WHITE AND BLUE No Label No Number This new album from Eric Strickland is an acoustic departure from his previous releases, which were pretty much hard country. Strickland began playing guitar at an early age and started writing songs in his late teens. He cites his influences growing up were Jimmy…

OLD GROWTH QUARTET RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN No Label No Number Tasteful is the first word that Old Growth Quartet’s Right Smack In The Middle Of Town brings to mind. This group knows what it can do and what it shouldn’t do. That knowledge can take an ensemble a long way. For…

CZECH BLUEGRASS: NOTES FROM THE HEART OF EUROPE BY LEE BIDGOOD Univ. of Ill. Press 9780252083006. Foreword by Tony Trischka, paperback, b&w photos, 192 pp., $24.95. (Univ. of Ill. Press, 11030 S. Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628, press.uillinois.edu.) If you’re reading this in America, you certainly know about the great bluegrass that’s sprouted up around…