Reviews

The Kody Norris Show For a minute or five, a listener might think they’ve pulled the latest Kody Norris Show CD from the vintage bin, not from the new releases pile of 2021. Don’t let the young face fool you—the sound is deeply traditional on All Suited Up. None other than bluegrass veteran Greg Cahill…

Branded Bluegrass Indiana-based Branded Bluegrass decided to try a few different things with the release of their third album.  Somebody’s Child is a bit of a departure from the usual traditional bluegrass the band favors. The group also added some special guests of note to play on the project — Shawn Lane, Michael Cleveland, Steve…

DS.M 20 Feb. 23, 2019 is a date fiddle legend Byron Berline will always remember with sorrow. A fire erupted in historic downtown Guthrie, OK where Berline had run his historic Double Stop Fiddle Shop for decades, destroying his business and an adjoining store. Berline, who was on a golf vacation in Mexico when the…

The publicity photos accompanying this release show Eli West at work in a small country chapel. In one particularly striking photo, he is seated in a pew, bathed in wan sunlight with his head bowed reverentially over his notepad with a microphone and cell phone in front of him. This photo in particular foretells the…

Shefa Records You’ve probably heard of rock operas, but would you believe a Civil War banjo opera?  Once you hear that it’s a Tony Trischka project, you’ll probably think, “Oh, okay, yeah.” Trischka has been pushing genre boundaries since his first album nearly 50 years ago. Shall We Hope is 18 tracks of spoken word,…

MGPR0003 Martin Gilmore is a talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from the Denver, Colorado area. He has performed around the U.S. and he recently returned from a two-year stint living in Cairo, Egypt, where he was able to perform in both Europe and Africa. He has performed with artists including Hot Rize, Uncle Earl, Infamous…