Reviews

CEDAR HILL BY REQUEST: A 50 YEAR TRADITION, VOLUME 1 Nickeltown Records NR170515 First off, fans of Cedar Hill may be put out when they pick up their copy of By Request: A 50 Year Tradition, Volume 1. That’s because after half a century, everyone’s favorite songs are not going to be on the album….

EDDIE ADCOCK VINTAGE BANJO JAM  Patuxent Music CD-300    Of the great innovators and masters of five-string banjo, Eddie Adcock may be the most underappreciated. If for no other reason, Vintage Banjo Jam may be the most significant all-instrumental album in a long time. Listening widely, musically restless, and influenced by finger-style guitar playing, Adcock was…

REX WISEMAN WELCOME HOME Dixie Dawg Records No Number Rex Wiseman is a multi-instrumentalist and current member of the Oak Ridge Boys. He plays fiddle, pedal steel, mandolin, and guitar. However, on this new solo project, he sticks to guitar, bringing in an excellent cadre of musicians, and singers. He is joined by Sammy Shelor…

CASEY CAMPBELL MANDOLIN DUETS, VOL. 1 No Label No Number Mandolin Duets, Vol. 1 is one of the most important bluegrass mandolin recordings since David Grisman’s landmark Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza two-CD set. Conceived by fourth-generation bluegrass musician Casey Campbell, who literally took his first steps in Bill Monroe’s dressing room backstage at the Grand Ole…

MARK OLITSKY & CARY MOSKOVITZ DUETS No Label No Number Two men with two banjos make some fascinating music. Olitsky plays a minstrel banjo, one of those nylon or gut-strung massive wonders that troll an octave below most banjos. Moskovitz plays three different plectrum banjos. Plectrum banjos have a neck as long as a five-string,…

CARSON PETERS AND IRON MOUNTAIN No Label CPM001 Here we go again. Hardly a month or so ago, I reviewed a 15-year-old fiddling phenom. Now comes a 13-year-old fiddling phenom. Carson Peters and Iron Mountain includes the able efforts of Ben Marshall on bass and vocals, Eric Marshall on banjo and vocals, Austin Tate on…