Articles

CHRIS HENRY MAKING MY WAY TO YOU Arrandem Records AR-250 Back in 2006, Chris Henry wrote and recorded “Walkin’ West To Memphis,” a strutting, ’50s-style bluegrass/country hybrid with more hooks than a hat rack—great lyrics, great feel. Not surprisingly the song charted to number five a few years later for The Gibsons and was nominated…

MARTY HAYS WISH WE HAD OUR TIME AGAIN No Label No Number Marty Hays secured his name in bluegrass by singing and playing bass with David Davis & the Warrior River Boys. This album shows off his strong clear voice in a program of bluegrass and country songs. From a song taken from Dock Boggs,…

JARED FINCK DAUNTING TASK No Label No Number As the musical bar rises, seemingly every few years, so too the number of extremely talented musicians. That presents problems. For one, how much do you praise someone playing on a level, at least technically, as good or better than the greats of ten or twenty years…

NELL ROBINSON & JIM NUNALLY HOUSE & GARDEN Nell Robinson Music NRM-103 By sheer coincidence, this duet album by Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally arrived shortly after reviewing a CD by Dix Bruce and Julie Cline. Bruce and Nunally are longtime duet partners who have released four recordings together, and it’s interesting to observe the…

MARTY RAYBON & FULL CIRCLE THE BACK FORTY Rural Rhythm RUR-1111 It’s hard to believe that Marty Raybon has been working in the music business for forty years, but the arc of his career has been so sweeping that it would have been hard to have achieved so much in less time. From his start…

PETER ROWAN THE OLD SCHOOL Compass Records 746002 In 2010, Peter Rowan came back to bluegrass with his wonderful recording Legacy. It wasn’t a matter of Rowan choosing to record a bluegrass album for the sake of it. Rather, it was a situation where he had written a bunch of songs about staring life in…