Articles

THE LITTLEST BIRDS SING THE PRETTIEST SONGS—BY JENNIE SMITH, INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL HURLEY—Chronicle Books. Hardback, 128 pages, full-color illustrations. $24.95. (Chronicle Books, 680 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94107, www.chroniclebooks.com.) This little hardback is part art book, part songbook. It would seem equally at home on a coffee table or in a music room. Author…

AKIRA OTSUKA FIRST TEAR Patuxent Music PX-CD 231  Anyone familiar with mandolinist Akira Otsuka knows the unsurpassed level of joy and energy he brings to his live performances. Here, on this his long-deferred debut, he succeeds in bringing that same spirit to a studio recording, one featuring nine original instrumentals and four guest-written covers, three…

CHARLIE AND CEDRIC OUT ON THE RIDGE Lara Natural Music LNM009 Charlie Boston is a bluegrass singer and songwriter from London, England. Cedric Thorose is originally from Baltimore, Md. Having moved to London and taking his resonator guitar with him, he appears here singing a great song about the longing of a factory worker for…

MUSIC FROM THE TRUE VINE: MIKE SEEGER’S LIFE & MUSICAL JOURNEY—BY BILL C. MALONE—University of North Carolina Press 9780807835104. Cloth, 256 pp., 25 illus, $30. (Univ. Of N.C. Press, 116 S. Boundary St., Chapel Hill, NC 27514, www.uncpress.unc.edu.) Bill Malone says in the introduction to this thorough and engaging biography of traditional musician Mike Seeger…

RUSSELL MOORE & IIIrd TYME OUT PRIME TYME Rural Rhythm 1085 IIIrd Tyme Out’s predictably first-rate new album might have been subtitled Love And Geography since several of the stand-out songs poignantly address themes of love and physical separation. Willis Alan Ramsey’s “Goodbye Old Missoula,” Milan Miller’s “Pretty Little Girl From Galax,” Milan Miller’s and…

YO-YO MA, STUART DUNCAN, EDGAR MEYER AND CHRIS THILE THE GOAT RODEO SESSIONS Sony Classical 88697 841182 Not long ago, classical string players might have sniffed sarcastically at the suggestion that bluegrass-influenced musicians could approach them in tone and technique. And the bluegrassers, in turn, would probably have scoffed that a real picker doesn’t know…