Reviews

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…

Miles in Blue, the latest album by Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, features a mature thoughtfulness that lends itself to introspective reflection. Not that the band has not shown their thoughtful side before, there is much in their catalog that would impart those feelings, but on Miles in Blue, they seemed especially mindful of the world around…

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…