Reviews

For bluegrass players, finding the right pick is crucial. Shape, thickness, material, bevel and tone all play a role in how a picker extracts the sound they seek from their instrument. In recent years, the introduction of new aerospace-grade materials and the demand for custom shapes has triggered an explosion in pick choices beyond the…

Maybe it tells you what you need to know when along with guest artists listed in the liner notes are the noted and vintage instruments used to make the music on the album. That’s what you get with this CD re-issue of the 1987 vinyl release from Ed Schaeffer & Rattlesnake Hill titled Scene from…

Hailing from the Big River area around SE Missouri, the aptly named Riverbend is a five-piece band with a style rooted in traditional bluegrass. Over 11 tunes here, the band shows a deft hand with high tenor lead voices and the driving Monroe-style mandolin of Andy Navara to bring a very traditional sound to their…

It’s my honor to get to listen to this project by Caleb Bailey of Virginia, who has assembled 10 original vocal tunes into a must-have CD.  Bailey presents listeners with an all-star cast of artists who lend their musical and recording skills, resulting in one of the more memorable projects I’ve heard in a while. …

—New York: Ten Speed Press (2020)  Thirty years ago IBMA honored the late DJ Bill Vernon, who became estranged from his family after he left Wall Street for bluegrass record collecting. We located his brother, who turned out to collect classical records. Dust & Grooves illuminates 130 major collectors in many countries and genre in…

Fiddle Solos Annie Staninec has been playing the fiddle from the time she was 4 years old and was performing by the age of 11.  It seems that her love for music happened very early in life and endures into the present with her performing and teaching in Portland, Oregon and all over the world. …