Reviews

East Kentucky-born Carl Bentley grew up singing in church in and around his hometown of McDowell. At age 10, he was given a Ralph Stanley album featuring Keith Whitley by his father, who was also a musician.  That was all it took. To this day, Bentley still wears the Stanley-Whitley influence, and wears it well….

Seven-time national fiddle champion, Grammy nominated recording artist, teacher, singer, touring musician, and flatfooter, Megan Lynch Chowning, hasn’t forgotten the challenges facing a newcomer and transitioning fiddle student. This teacher has true talent in recalling the apprehension and desire newer fiddlers have on where to start, how to learn particular songs and practical ideas on…

Originally from New York, Alex Graf picked up the guitar at the age of twelve and over the following years had immersed himself studying jazz by such greats as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker. Moving to Colorado in 2017, he discovered there was also a home for him in bluegrass music, becoming influenced…

“Details,” the opening track of Dumas’s second solo album, an uplifting and encouraging love song, jumps right out at you in a warm and welcoming manner that persists through this entire 11-song collection. Dumas, of course, is the sort of celebrated musician from whom we’d expect nothing less. The Grammy-nominated, IBMA award-winning singer and mandolin…

Many bluegrass fans and scholars mark the beginning of bluegrass music, as we know it today, from the date in late 1945 when Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.  However, the band had been active on the Grand Ole Opry, in various configurations, since 1939.  During those first six years, Monroe…

Like Tony Rice and David Grisman before him, guitarist Ross Martin fords across genres, treading the borders of jazz and bluegrass. A longtime member of the Matt Flinner trio, and regular duet partner of Grant Gordy, Martin is equally at home picking on a fiddle tune, navigating the tight corners of a Bud Powell composition…