Reviews

Mountain Fever MFR230310 From Vancouver, British Columbia comes this award-winning new group which consists of Tianna Lefebvre (lead vocals), Mike Sanyshyn (fiddle, mandolin, vocals), Charlie Frie (bass, vocals), and Eric Reed (guitar, banjo). Guests include John Reischman (mandolin), Jeff Scroggins (banjo), and Michael Kilby (resonator guitar).  Only together for a short time, the band has…

Patuxent CD-360 Eddie Ray is a fiery, young, sixteen-year-old banjo player from North Carolina who grew up influenced by such bluegrass artists as Flatt & Scruggs and Reno & Smiley as well as Country, Latin, Jazz and more contemporary music. He is accompanied on this project by Danny Nicely (mandolin, guitar), Marshall Wilborn (bass), Patrick…

Molly Tuttle’s band is called Golden Highway and her new album is City of Gold and the first song is called “El Dorado.” The emerging theme here is something rare of high value and this CD fits the bill. Few acts have had the sustained heat of Tuttle and her supporting cast over the last…

For many of us with a fascination with both the tonalities and the designs of vintage instruments, a visit to a place like Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, with its collection of guitar rarities, is like to a visit to the Louvre in Paris or the Boston Institute of Fine Arts. In a virtual sense, this…

Mike Mitchell’s first album with Turnberry Records was released just before Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and the timing couldn’t have been an accident. Fathers & Sons is about family relationships and strikes more than one personal note. Mitchell, a native of Canada, lives and runs a music school in Floyd, Virginia, part of the…

Though still a relatively young man, Ben Krakauer has put together a remarkable career. He’s been a professor and lecturer at a number of prestigious universities. He’s an ethnomusicologist who has studied and written on topics ranging from experimental bluegrass in New York City in the 1970s to the dotara players of West Bengal. Krakauer…