Reviews

SECTION HOUSE Mountain Fever MFR 160325 Aaron Ramsey (mandolin), Bryan McDowell (fiddle), Cory Walker (banjo), Jake Stargel (guitar), and Jeff Partin (bass) have created a masterpiece of an instrumental album that ranges from frolicking dance music and blazing bluegrass to post-modern Dawg sounds. The album was “recorded pretty dang live,” says Cory Walker in the…

SAM BUSH STORYMAN Sugar Hill SUG000011 When it comes to the music we call bluegrass today, no one has been as influential in creating that open-ended, freewheeling style of acoustic music than Sam Bush. Starting with his groundbreaking work with the Bluegrass Alliance, the chart-topping records he made with the seminal New Grass Revival, and…

COULDN’T HAVE A WEDDING WITHOUT THE FIDDLER: THE STORY OF TRADITIONAL FIDDLING ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND BY KEN PERLMAN University of Tenn. Press. Paperback, 504 pp., $39.95. (Univ. Of Tenn Press, 110 Conference Center, 600 Henley St., Knoxville, TN 37996, www.utpress.org.) This is the crown jewel of Perlman’s extensive research of the fiddling on Prince…

DEL McCOURY AND DAVID GRISMAN DEL & DAWG LIVE! Acoustic Disc ACD-CD-50051 I think it was way back in 1989, when I attended a concert at a time when David Grisman embarked on a tour with the Del McCoury Band. At the time, I recall it seemed like a startling change of pace for Grisman,…

JUNIOR SISK AND RAMBLERS CHOICE POOR MAN’S PLEASURE Mountain Fever MFR160527    This fine album is marked by the presence of a few friends stepping in and making it something special. It is Sisk’s voice married to the guitar of Aaron Ramsey that provides the groundwork this project is built upon. Sisk injured his hand while…

THE FARMS HANDS DIG IN THE DIRT Pinecastle Records PRC 1199 The Farm Hands latest is a delight. To be blunt, nothing vocally or instrumentally is going to stop you in your tracks with its virtuosity. What this set of 12 captivating and well-rendered songs will do is entertain, make you listen, make you think,…