Articles

Chosen Road’s latest release, It Never Gets Old is a collection of soulful gospel tunes highlighted with wonderfully blended vocals and instrumentation. The group has been together for over a decade and produced a chart-topping album, Appalachian Christmas, last year. This reviewer was fortunate enough to review Water Grave a few years ago—an early, solidly…

Resophonic Explorations Billy Cardine has explored the possibilities of the square-neck resophonic guitar far beyond the genres of bluegrass, folk, country, Americana and blues.   While musical explorations that push the outer bounds of genre are not typically embraced by bluegrass hardliners, Cardine is a musician who knows how to reign in his expansive musical abilities…

Photos by Ben Wright With the release of their latest album Lead and Iron and after more than nineteen years as a band, Chicago-based Henhouse Prowlers has settled on the right combination. They started as a six-piece band playing every Tuesday night at a neighborhood bar on the north side of Chicago. As they started…

And then there are the albums that make a listener just think, “wow.” Sometimes one comes along that’s hard to pick a handful of songs to focus on because—to borrow an old phrase—it’s all killer, no filler. That’s the case with Carson Peters & Iron Mountain’s latest album, Gotta Lotta Lonesome. Eight of the 12…

University of Missouri Press  Howard Wight Marshall, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri, has recently completed his trilogy covering the history of fiddling in the state of Missouri.  The first book in the series, titled Play Me Something Quick and Devilish (2013) begins with what is known about fiddling from the time of…

Nervous Energy seems like the perfect name for a solo project from a banjo player who is staying busy.  Andy Lowe, most recently known for his work with the Deer Creek Boys, looks like he has a winner. The first single off the album is “Mountain,” with the lead singing duties taken by Josh Shilling…