Grassicana

Emmylou Harris at Meijer Garden in Grand Rapids, MI (August 8, 2021) - photo © Bryan Bolea The heat and humidity did not stop a capacity crowd from lining up, hours before the gates opened, in hopes of snagging prime real estate on

Anyone who's delved into the history of popular music knows that there's always been a free exchange of ideas and influences going back and forth between the US and the UK. One link began early on, when the English adopted

We have written several times about Spanish banjo player Lluís Gómez and his newfound passion for mixing bluegrass banjo technique with flamenco music, the traditional folk and dance style of his native southern Spain. Many of the elements typical of

The next installment in his American Stories series, Appalachia finds acclaimed singer and songwriter Grant Maloy Smith digging deep into his family roots, sharing songs that celebrate a place where his forebears first established their homestead some 200 years ago.

If the husband-wife duo, Nefesh Mountain, were any other group pursuing their craft, they'd simply be cited as an exceptional outfit, bearing the sole subtext that they happen to operate under the auspices of bluegrass and grassicana. Yet the fact

Often described as a "Jewgrass" band due to the commitment and connection to their religion and upbringing, Nefesh Mountain’s Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff manage to dismiss any disparities between ethnicity and the essence of abject grassicana. So too, as

Colorado's Jackson Melnick is preparing to release his debut album in September, Abilene, a collection of his songs set to bluegrass instrumentation with producer Christopher Henry. It contains an interesting mix of folk and bluegrass, with Dylan-esque songs supported by

Better known as the land of the midnight sun than as a place where the grass grows blue, Norway has nevertheless managed to spawn a band that stays true to tradition despite the seeming disparity between Scandinavia and Appalachia. Based in

It would be hard to deny Leftover Salmon's overriding influence, not only on bluegrass, but on other thriving musical forms as well. Credited as one of the originators of that particular niche known as "jamgrass," they've found themselves in a

Graber Gryass is a progressive bluegrass/jamgrass band based in Memphis. They include a number of area pickers, most of whom play with other regional groups as well, who get together to perform and record songs written by Michael Graber. They have