Articles

The Past Kim Robins—singer, songwriter, band leader, entrepreneur, nurse, mother, grandmother and all-around busy woman—produced her first recording in 2013. It is still available and titled Forty Years Late. “What’s the fuss” you might wonder? The buzz is that Kim was somewhat “late” in life in getting to the point where that CD was created…

Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass For Pixie & the Partygrass Boys, one of the most important pillars of bluegrass is what drives the band. “Community is everything for us,” says Zach Downes. “It’s the reason we sit in a van for hours each day. To be able to connect with fans and different bands…

Jody Stecher has been around forever—or at least since the 1960s when he emerged from the remnants of the folk music revival.  On his latest album, a collaboration with the distinguished Boston-based string band Mile Twelve, he sounds better than ever. His warm, lived-in voice and his intriguing original songs bring to mind a West…

Appalachian Reign was formed in 1975 by Washington, DC area musician Tom Knowles. Between 1976 and 1984 Knowles and the band played many of the DC area venues, clubs and festivals. This project is a retrospect of those years that Knowles had the band and the cuts are culled from cassette tapes of some of…

Maryland’s Roger Cline has put together a nice collection of mostly original material on this new project of stories about bravery, courage, tenacity and about those who have it. He is joined here by a host of musicians including: Scott Freeman (mandolin), Debbie Durant & Tom Hensler (bass), Gary Hultman (resonator guitar), John Scott Walker…

New Mexico’s Higher Ground Bluegrass is celebrating 25 years of music with this ninth project. The band was established in 1998 by Duke Weddington, banjo player and primary songwriter, and in the past the band has opened for such artists as Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Tim O’Brien, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Peter Rowan, and…