Jimmy Martin was born on August 10, 1924 in Sneedville, TN; today would've been his 89th birthday. The undisputed "King Of Bluegrass," Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys made some of hardest-hitting bluegrass music of all-time. One of my favorite
Back in June, we reported to you about the Barefoot Movement, a young folk group with roots in the ETSU Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies program. The band has recently released its second album, Figures of the Year,
While most bluegrass albums contain at least a few updated versions of old standards, there’s also some great new original music coming out these days. Milan Miller, the writer behind recent fan favorites Caney Fork River (Balsam Range) and Pretty
The Deadly Gentlemen’s third release Roll Me, Tumble Me is out this summer from Rounder Records. The Boston-based group has a rootsy, folk influenced acoustic sound using traditional bluegrass instrumentation, but the music is harder to describe. More progressive than traditional... hipster
Opening disclaimer: I've known Dan Miller for the past 20 years, ever since he moved east from California to southwest Virginia in 1998. Dan had uprooted his young family and bought a home in the thriving metropolis of Hiawassee, VA to
The Back Forty, so called to mark Marty Raybon’s 40th anniversary in the music business, is his latest release on the Rural Rhythm label (RR 1111). It consists of 10 songs, half of which Raybon helped to write and each
Numerous bluegrass artists performing today got their start in the late 1980s and '90s, helping to solidify the country-tinged mix of traditional and contemporary bluegrass that is so popular these days. One of these artists is Jimmy Bowen, who, after
Although they have been through numerous personnel changes in just over a decade as a band, Blue Moon Rising has consistently released albums full of well-written modern traditional bluegrass tunes. With their latest album (their sixth as a band), Blue
Ron Block is what you might call a complicated artist. If you pick the five, you probably see him as the powerful banjo player with Alison Krauss & Union Station. Guitarists think of Ron in that role with AKUS, as
Anyone who is new to sweet-singing songwriter Donna Ulisse is in for a treat when listening to her new Gospel collection, I Am A Child of God. Regular fans, on the other hand, might feel a bit of déjà vu
