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EASY 2-CHORD SONGS FOR THE MANDOLIN—BY WAYNE ERBSEN—Native Ground Music NGB-407. (Native Ground Music, 109 Bell Rd., Asheville, NC 28803, web: www.nativeground.com.) Wayne Erbsen has written a basic book for beginners who want to learn to play mandolin. The premise is that the reader is very new to music and to the instrument. Based on…

DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE STEAM Mountain Fever MFR180629 This recording marks the seventh for the Charlotte, N.C.-based band and their first on the Mountain Fever label. The title-track Steamwas released as a single and the entire project is now available. It’s a solid effort that further marks the band’s upward movement in the ranks, and they’re…

CARIDWEN & GREG SPATZ ALL ALONG THE SEA Corvus Records CR025 For years, I imagine Caridwen and Greg Spatz have heard people say, “You should do an album together.” Now they have, and it’s glorious. Few duos could have recorded a collection of such range and mastery, one that melds Irish, Swing, French, Scottish, Klezmer,…

BLUEGRASS, NEWGRASS, OLD-TIME, AND AMERICANA MUSIC—BY CRAIG HARRIS—Pelican Publishing 9781455624010. Paperback, 400 pp., 63 b&w photos, $24.95. (Pelican Publishing, 1000 Burmaster St., Gretna, LA 70053, www.pelicanpub.com.) For many years, we’ve heard the expression “big tent” to connote the wider musical world of traditional music. Some feel that bluegrass encompasses that tent; others think bluegrass is…

BLUEGRASS GENERATION: A MEMOIR—BY NEIL V. ROSENBERG—Univ. of Illinois Press 9780252083396. Foreword by Gregory N. Reish, paperback, 304 pp., $21.95. (Univ. of Illinois Press, 11030 S. Langley Ave., Chicago, IL60628, press.uillinois.edu.) It seems that each generation felt, in its time, that it was the first to bring bluegrass to a wider audience. Those who came…

ALWAYS BEEN A RAMBLER: G.B. GRAYSON AND HENRY WHITTER, COUNTRY MUSIC PIONEERS OF SOUTHERN APPALACHIA—BY JOSH BECKWORTH—McFarland Publishing 9781476667294. Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies (Series), 234 pp, $25. (McFarland Publishing, P.O. Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, www.mcfarlandpub.com.) It’s rare for a labor of love, which this book clearly is, to also be a well-written, balanced,…