Reviews

A concept album of 16 songs focusing on stories and characters from the Cumberland Gap area of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia takes the listener back in time. Twenty-seven artists whose familes are originally from the region are featured, with lead vocals from Teddy Cosby, Bryan Turner, Phillip Powers, James Clark, Joseph Wilson, Randall Massengill, Jason…

The Flowers brothers, Doug and Dwayne, live in the small town of Hephzibah, Georgia, not far from Augusta. The town’s original name was Brothersville, hence the name of this new project from Doug and his band. Band members include Doug Flowers (mandolin, vocals), Dwayne Flowers (bass, vocals), Edward Dalton (guitar, vocals), Aaron Lamb (banjo, vocals),…

Many bluegrass musicians love to “geek-out” about their instruments.  They talk about the make, the model, the builder, the year it was built, the woods used, the dimensions, the strings, the bridges, the tuners, the nuts and saddles…it is not uncommon for anything and everything about the instruments to be studied, analyzed and discussed.  Since…

If you’re one of the many who have stayed close to home during the COVID pandemic of 2020-21, here’s your chance to live vicariously through the adventures of Australian bluegrass radio broadcaster Jan Dale as she chronicles her American journey that took place over a period of six years in the 1990s. Her goal was…

If it wasn’t for the Birchmere, I probably would not have had a career in bluegrass music.  I grew up in Springfield, Virginia and my childhood home was exactly ten miles door-to-door from the second Birchmere, located on Mt. Vernon Avenue in Alexandria.  I then went to college at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis,…

Don Schlitz (guitar) is an award-winning songwriter who has garnered two Grammys as well as being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. These are just few of his awards as he has written songs for such as Kenny Rogers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Randy Travis, Keith Whitley, The…