Music Reviews

Several years ago, a sibling band based out of Florida took the bluegrass world by storm when they won the 2012 SPGBMA Band Competition and set off on a powerful career that recently earned them a number of IBMA Awards,

Rebekah Long has chalked up an impressive bluegrass resume over the past decade despite often staying behind the scenes. Long was one of the first graduates of Glenville State College’s bluegrass program, and spent time playing bass with both

Can any song be turned into a bluegrass number? And furthermore, should it? Those are the questions I found myself asking as I listened to Dwight Yoakam’s new album, with the tongue-in-cheek title, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars.... Yoakam lined up a

In the late 1940s through the '50s, a style of American jazz music emerged that came to be know as cool jazz, characterized by more restrained and subtle soloing, and less hectic arrangements than the be-bop era that had preceded

Mountain Fever Records has a good thing going over in the hills of southern Virginia. With a roster that includes enduring favorites like Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice and Grasstowne along with a host of rising stars such as Mountain

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grascals. And while I love a lot of things about Kristin Scott Benson’s new solo project, Stringworks, one of the things I love best about it that it doesn’t sound like the band

Eastman Strings has been a friend to bluegrass for some time now, and one of its reps, Tim Finch, is a regular presence at World of Bluegrass, MerleFest, the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival and elsewhere. But Tim doesn’t just sell Eastman mandolins,

When a band has been around for over twenty years (with a membership that has rarely changed), fans come to expect certain things. In the case of Blue Highway, which releases its eleventh studio album, Original Traditional, today, we expect

Has bluegrass music gotten better over its somewhat brief 70 year history? I'm not talking about how the music that is categorized as bluegrass has expanded over this time, and how people may feel about that, but about the core

Deep Waters, the debut Rounder project for The Lonely Heartstring Band, may well be a precursor of what bluegrass music will sound like in the future. In a way I've yet to see accomplished as successfully before, they manage to