Reviews

In the increasingly crowded arena of custom and boutique flatpicks, we’ve seen an interesting trend develop. One on side, we find makers who’ve discovered that certain existing industrial materials developed for wildly different purposes than plucking the string of a guitar or mandolin can be fashioned into world-class plectra. The second track we see is…

Steve Bruce is a local pastor in LaFollette, Tennessee, who is also a banjo player and songwriter. On this project of his original material, Bruce is accompanied by his son Andrew Bruce (guitar, bass, resonator guitar), and guests Ron Stewart (mandolin, fiddle), and Glen Duncan (fiddle).  This is an all-instrumental project with Bruce’s excellent banjo…

Charmaine Slaven and Charlie Beck met while exploring and promoting the old-time music and dance scene in the local Seattle, Washington Area. They continued in the manner for a few years and eventually resettled in the Brasstown, North Carolina area, and, along with daughter Hazel, they immersed themselves in the historic musical legacy of the…

Mark Whitt makes no bones about his love for playing and promoting traditional bluegrass music.  One need to look no further for the evidence of this Kentuckian’s desire to preserve the old time sound than his third album, Tennessee Moon. Whitt went into the vault to cover tunes from Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe and Carter…

Kristina Gaddy, a Baltimore-based writer and fiddler, has written exactly the book the banjo world needs right now. She explores questions that many among us, including myself, have been asking since the turbulent summer of 2020, including, “Why was it that an instrument constantly described as ‘Black’ and ‘African’ came to be thought of as…

This Georgia-based family band, which seems and sounds like a fundamentalist Christian version of the legendary Trapp Family, has an interesting back story. Husband Jon (lead singer and bass player) and wife Marina (fiddle and harmony vocals) Linblom are classically trained musicians who first moved south about 20 years ago to take positions with the…