Reviews

Martin Luxe Contour Pick

We live in a golden era for flat picks, with custom and boutique pick makers producing beautifully fashioned plectrums in a truly bewildering range of space age materials, shapes, and bevels. Into that market comes C.F. Martin with its newly introduced Luxe Contour Pick. Using a shape similar to the Blue Chip TP-1R, it features…

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Just Off the Wilderness Road, Songs of the Cumberland Gap Region

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…

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Brothersville 

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),…

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Masters of Tonewood:  The Hidden Art of Fine  Stringed-Instrument Making

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…

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The Earl Scruggs Banjo Songbook:  Selected Banjo Tab Accurately Transcribed For Over 80 Tunes!

If you are a bluegrass banjo player, you are probably already searching the internet for a place to buy this book simply by reading the title (if you don’t have it already).  I’m not sure that I could say anything in this review to change your mind.  So, my job in writing this review is…

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Balsam Range

Writing about Balsam Range is like trying to write about George Washington or Robert E. Lee or Abraham Lincoln—it takes a minute to find something to say that hasn’t already been said.  After all, they’ve turned out nine albums over the last 14 years and have won so many group and individual awards that’s so…

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