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Remembering John Hartford
Hartford is 24 Years Gone, Yet His Music and Personality Still Influences New Generations I got to know John Hartford a little bit through the sheer luck of geography. As a native of Huntington, West Virginia, located on the banks of the mighty Ohio River, my family would eventually move to Cincinnati when I was…
Wall Dogs
Tim Stafford’s and Thomm Jutz’s sophomore album is kind of like a songwriting class on CD. They really show how it’s done. Jutz, a prolific writer and former IBMA Songwriter of the Year, does in fact lecture on songwriting at Nashville’s Belmont University. Stafford, also a an IBMA Songwriter of the Year, is a former…
Old Juniper
This is a trio based in the Brooklyn, New Yorik area and consists of Walker Shepard (vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle), Jackson Lynch (vocals, fiddle, guitar, banjo), and Eli Smith (banjo, guitar, banjo-mandolin, pump organ, harmonica), however Walker Shepard has since relocated to Wisconsin. There is also guest artist Hannah Shepard on cello. This is the…
True Tones
On his new CD, mandolinist Mark Stoffel offers up a stylistically diverse outing on mostly original instrumental tunes. The Austrian expat who tours with Chris Jones and the Night Riders, does a deep dive into his own influences and tastes, creating a CD where styles range from modern bluegrass, to refined instrumentals, to the sort…
I Heard The Morgan Bell
Brandon Godman is a fiddle player and luthier based in San Francisco, California. Originally from Kentucky, Godman spent time in Cincinnati and Nashville learning his playing and instrument making skills. Along the way he has played with such artists as Melvin Goins, Dale Ann Bradley, Doyle Lawson, and David Peterson, among others, and he has…
The Never Ending Years
A former IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the year and national mandolin champion, Thomas Cassell has performed with everyone from Billy Strings and Jim Lauderdale to Missy Raines, Becky Buller and Bryan Sutton. His latest album, and follow-up to his 2028 instrumental collection Voyager reveals Cassell’s impressive talents as both a singer and lyricist. There’s a…