Reviews

Even though these two master pickers —Jack Dunlap, one of the fastest guns on mandolin (and guitar) in the greater Washington, D.C. area, and Robert Mabe, a North Carolina-born banjo master—have been collaborating on and off for years, Dunlap started this project as a solo album about two years ago. After years of showcasing on…

There is that elusive thing in all genres of music to sound distinctive while still being true to the audience at whom the music is directed.  The Foreign Landers have hit the mark with their debut full length album, Travelers Rest. They say it takes a story to sell art and the Foreign Landers have…

Amanda Cook’s latest album combines her distinctive voice, tight picking from her band and solid songwriting from some of bluegrass’s best pens to create a winner. Changes is Cook’s fourth full length studio album with Mountain Fever records. It follows Narrowing the Gap, which was released in 2021.  The new album has already been well…

The most memorable musical moments are those when virtuosity is transcended into the realms of wizardry and magic, and this remarkable album is full of such moments. Leftwich has been accurately described as “one of the most recorded fiddle players of the 21st century.” Aside from a 16-year stint in Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder, he’s…

Rhythm guitar is often an  overlooked part of the skill set of the modern bluegrass guitar player.  Many amateur guitar players today spend the majority of their practice time learning and polishing up their solos, often to the detriment of their rhythm playing.  Some even view rhythm as “that thing that you have to do…

Since his start as an original columnist for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine in 1996, Adam Granger has produced an enormous and exceptional body of work for bluegrass guitarists. His book and CD set, Granger’s Fiddle Tunes for Guitar, is claimed to be the largest collection of fiddle tunes in guitar tablature in the world, with more than 500 fiddle…