Reviews

The word authenticity hangs, like a heavy tree limb, over every conversation about roots music. As the umbrella of acoustic music has expanded to cover music that resembles bluegrass and folk in instrumental texture alone, many traditionalists have expressed concern over a divorce from its aural history. They posit that to pick up a banjo…

Trailhead Records Roots is an interesting and fun album just on the merits of spinning in the CD player.  But on closer inspection when the listener finds out it was literally created with a one-man band and that the one man—Liam Purcell—wrote all but one song (he co-wrote the other), it becomes an even more…

University of Illinois Press Don’t let the subtitle of this important book possibly turn you away. Yes, potent blends of electrified country and rock provided cornerstones for the “Americana” genre, a comparatively recent musical edifice. (The Americana Music Association wasn’t founded until 1999, and a matching Grammy Awards category had to wait another decade.)  But…

Leave all expectations at the door, put on Hell on Church Street and let the Punch Brothers take you on an unique tribute to the late legend Tony Rice with an inspiring take on his classic record; Church Street Blues. Hell on Church Street by the Punch Brothers brings to bear what Tony Rice always…

East Nash Grass is one of a growing number of bands composed of young pickers trying to elbow their way onto the scene, offering sounds that provide yet another wrinkle to the question, “What bluegrass is?” With a debut album of the same name, East Nash Grass not only shows fresh playing, but original music….

Bluegrass veteran Chris Jones has an incredibly appealing voice. It conveys soulfulness, dignity and integrity. It’s a voice you can trust as he shares his exquisitely crafted and deeply felt original songs with us. Many of Jones’s songs approach age-old themes from fresh and slightly elliptical angles, and they’re often tinged with a sense of…