Reviews

This is a new project from the father and son duo of Phil and Dan Rosenthal. Phil is best known as a songwriter and former member of the Seldom Scene and the Old Dog project. His son Dan grew up listening to his dad’s and others’ music but subsequently chose to take up trumpet and…

Rick Faris is a well-known, award-winning singer-songwriter. He spent 11 years as a member of Special Consensus, and his own Rick Faris Trio has traveled the US, Europe, the UK, and Canada. He recently opened his Faris Guitar Co. in Owensboro, Kentucky, where he focuses on his business and continues writing and recording.  This new…

[Editor’s Note: We ran this review in the September 2025, however, there were some inaccuracies in that review.  Because of those inaccuracies, I decided to run the review again with corrections included.  Our apologies to Volume Five for the previous inaccurate review.] Mississippi fiddle player Glen Harrell founded Volume Five in 2008, originally as a…

Ever since Earl Scruggs stepped on stage with Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys in December of 1945, banjo players have been interested in learning how to play the five-string banjo like Earl.  Early banjo players slowed down recordings and went to watch Earl play in order to figure out how he was executing those…

In 2015, Seth Mulder and some friends began playing at the local Ole Smokey Moonshine Distillery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The group based their music on traditional bluegrass with a more modern approach, and by 2018, Seth and Midnight Run band became official. Since then, the band has gained in popularity, and they have been busy…

The Bay Ramblers were a San Fransisco Bay Area bluegrass band that performed for a couple of years in the mid-1980s at venues like Paul’s Saloon and the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival.  Some of the shows at those two venues were recorded live, and Sandy Rothman, who was the banjo player in the band, has…