With bluegrass music programs at high schools and universities across the country, initiatives such as the Foundation for Bluegrass Music’s Bluegrass in the Schools, and various local organizations which sponsor lessons and bands for young children, it’s no surprise that
There are few things in bluegrass I anticipate with quite the same enthusiasm as a new project from Kenny & Amanda Smith. I suppose I should admit that bias right up front. And I have not yet been disappointed by what
Montana's John Lowell, founding member and guitarist with the popular but now disbanded Kane's River, has just released a new album. I Am Going To The West consists primarily of Lowell singing his original material, with sparse guitar accompaniment. But when I
Jesse Gregory is a strong young vocalist from Maryville, TN, currently enrolled in the Bluegrass, Old Time & Country Music program at East Tennessee State University. She has the distinction of being the first woman to declare a bluegrass major
Throughout the twenty-plus years that Russell Moore has been leading IIIrd Tyme Out, they have continually provided fans with top-notch bluegrass music. They have occasionally branched into tunes from other genres on various albums, but never as much as they
The first time I heard Dawn Kenney sing, at an IBMA song circle two years ago, I so desperately wished I wasn’t next to perform. I don’t remember what I played or sang that night, but I guarantee I didn’t
After a three-year hiatus from recording, North Carolina-based band The Grass Cats is back with their eighth album, The Mountains My Baby and Me, out on New Time Records. The Grass Cats, who recently marked fifteen years as a band,
Many singer-songwriters spend most of their career without having their songs cut by a hit artist. Some, however, enjoy great success. Perhaps it would be wise of us (myself included) to take note of the work of songwriters like Ray
One of the latest groups to put forth a live album is Darin & Brooke Aldridge, with the release of their performance at the Red, White, and Bluegrass Festival in Morganton, North Carolina this past July. With Live at Red,
After a brief liaison with Rounder Records, the latest CD from Danny Paisley & the Southern Grass, Road into Town, has been released by Patuxent Music, (PX CD-238). Paisley has an edge to his voice so hard that it cuts through
