Reviews

There once was a time when supergroups, those unique combinations of musicians who had already achieved great success with other bands before banding together, regularly roamed the earth, but over time these collections and configurations of musicians seemed to happen less and less.  Then along comes the High Hawks, an all-star roster of talent from…

Tiki Parlour Recordings 019 The duo has an unusual name, an uncommon make up, and a catchy, foot-tapping sound that proves irresistible over a 12-song effort. Gabrielle Macrae and Barry Southern are the Horsenecks and Started Out in Town is their third album. It’s a worthy effort. Macrae is a fiddle player from Oregon who…

Pine Castle Records Bradley, a five-time IBMA “Female Vocalist of the Year” award winner, former member of the Coon Creek Girls and Sister Sadie and one of the best singers around, recently noted that, “bluegrass can go anywhere, do anything, rip your heart out and make you laugh.” Most of these 10 songs will do…

Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck bring the kind of missionary zeal and unshakeable confidence to double-banjo albums that Sam I Am brought to his evangelizing for green eggs and ham. The duo’s second full-length recording, Echo In The Valley (2017), is instrumentally sparce— two banjos at any one time, two voices, a pair of dancing…

Daisy Caire It’s inspiring and heartwarming to encounter a young emerging talent like Northern Californian Daisy Caire. This 16-year-old is not just an enchanting singer and songwriter; she’s a fine fiddle player and guitar flatpicker to boot. Caire possesses a lovely sense of innocence and playfulness that’s simply irresistible. It comes through clearly in both…

I have worked with True Fire lessons for guitar for many years.  At first, the site primarily offered guitar lessons for rock players, but they have added genres outside of rock and instruments other than the guitar. I have always enjoyed True Fire’s quality of presentation, ease of use, extra bonus features (like downloadable tabs…