Reviews

Jaelee Roberts has an almost perfect pedigree for her chosen career. She has been immersed in music since she was a little girl. Her father Danny is a founding member of the popular band, The Grascals, and by the time she was five she’d already appeared on stage with her dad’s group.  Her mother, Andrea…

There are not many bands that can claim to have done songwriting in Antarctica.  Joey Capoccia of The Pine Hearts did just that while working as a carpenter for the National Science Foundation at the South Pole greenhouse. The Pine Hearts are a self-described Americana band out of Olympia, Washington with a new release entitled…

Great songwriters know how to open themselves up and reveal something intimate about who they are, and the lives they have lived, in their songs.  The deeper a writer can dig down in expressing a feeling, emotion, memory, or story, the easier it is for the listener to connect with the song because, more often…

Following a well-received 2018 album (Reflections), the Tony Rook Band is back with a new release, Matters of the Heart.  Rook wrote or co-wrote seven of the twelve songs on the disc. Louisa Branscomb contributed three. Banjo player Graham Sones, formerly of Monroe Crossing,  wrote the strong instrumental, “Mud Fence Mending.” There’s another nice, bouncy…

Banjo Dan is Dan Lindner of Vermont. In his 50 plus years he has recorded 17 studio albums and worked on a number of other projects, including six solo releases of which this is his seventh and last effort. Lindner has decided to close his career with one more collection of his mostly original compositions…

Though this is a gospel band through and through, its high-level exuberance and artistry give it an almost universal appeal. Little Roy’s and Lizzie’s music is both a celebration of faith and life and how, for some of us, they are inextricable.     This super-tight six-piece group comes roaring out of the starting gate…