Reviews

Missy Raines grew up in West Virginia and spent much of the 60’s and 70’s, along with her family, going to music festivals in the Baltimore, Washington, D.C. area. She got her first bass at the age of 10, and it soon became her only and best instrument. Over the years, she cut her musical…

Quick! Name two of Chet Atkins’ hit singles. OK, one? Because of his decades-long success producing hits for other acts and in so doing co-creating with Owen Bradley the fabled “Nashville Sound,” Chet Atkins’ contributions as an artist in his own right have been routinely overshadowed. Yet by the time he died in 2001 at…

Keep On Keepin’ On is the best album you will listen to in 2025, which came extremely close to never seeing the light of day.  C.J. Lewandowski and bluegrass legend Bobby Osborne had started an album just months before Osborne’s passing. The mandolin player from the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys was so distraught at losing his…

In their time, The Country Gentlemen were one of the most influential groups in bluegrass. From their founding in 1957, over the next several decades, they recorded dozens of albums as key members came and went. The Gentlemen were among the first to broadly expand bluegrass’s vocabulary by bringing in material from other genres. In…

Since forming in 2015, West Virginia’s Crandall Creek has become one of bluegrass music’s well-known and popular groups, having been nominated for and winning a number of awards, and having their songs placed high on the music charts.  Founded by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Andrews, he is joined on this new release by original members…

The “Pickin’ On” series on CMH Records may have started as a whim or a novelty, but after three decades and dozens of releases, it’s become a cottage industry.  By now, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Eagles have all been “picked on,” along with seemingly less likely candidates like The Doors, Green Day, The…