Reviews

Mel Bay Publications Mel Bay Publications has excelled at providing quality instructional material for stringed instruments for 0ver 75 years.   One of their newest offerings for mandolin players displays the quality of material and presentation that students of acoustic music have come to love from this music publisher. Mandolin Picking Tunes—Old-Time Gems provides mandolin…

As the press material accompanying Mile Twelve’s third album explains, and as most listeners will agree, their music on their third album explodes and smolders with the urgency of trying to make up for lost time. The songs of this Boston-based “acoustic string band” (to use the band’s own description) makes no direct reference to…

The bluegrass arena has no shortage of brilliant fiddlers and Michael Cleveland is front and center among them.  This fiddling phenomenon has won no fewer than 12 IBMA “Fiddle Player of the Year” Awards as well as six annual IBMA “Instrumental Performer of the Year” Awards.   Along the way, he’s also picked up a…

West Virginia native Greg Blake has the kind of earnest and persuasive voice that you could listen to all day. It’s a voice capable of conveying nuanced layers of intimacy and empathy.   When you listen to Blake, you might feel as if he’s sitting in your living room relating some of these intensely emotional…

This impressive young band from Owensboro, Kentucky, home of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum, is starting to get some well-deserved attention beyond the banks of the Ohio River. Kentucky Shine’s members—JB Miller on guitar, Steven Stewart on fiddle, Ross Clark on bass and Jordan Riehm on banjo—are just as at home playing traditional bluegrass as they…

Bill Evans is one of those figures whose name is almost synonymous with the American banjo.  He’s not just an innovator (one fan described him as “the same thing to the banjo that Van Gogh was to color”); he’s also an instructor, student, author (Banjo for Dummies, among other titles) and historian of his chosen…