In 1972, Carl Fleischhauer photographed J.D. Crowe at his mobile home in Lexington, Kentucky. Black and white. Cadillac parked out front. Window-unit air conditioner. The epitome of cool. This is that J.D. Crowe. Almost. If your Crowe touchstone is his […]
Kenny Smith, formerly an award-winning guitarist with the Lonesome River Band, has been performing with his wife Amanda since leaving LRB in 2001. This gospel project was made all the more poignant when Kenny’s father passed away the week before […]
When you can find a fresh, enticing way to cover the Lowell George/Little Feat warhorse Willin, youre doing something right. John Starling & Carolina Star featuring Mike Auldridge and Tom Gray, Starlings former bandmates in the Seldom Scene burrow to […]
David Davis & the Warrior River Boys seem to hail from a time and place where the line between bluegrass and country had not yet been drawn. There’s no hint of pretension, as if they were trying to manufacture a […]
Don Rigsby has been an integral part of several high-profile groups (J.D. Crowe & the New South, Lonesome River Band, Longview, Rock County) and has released a handful of solo recordings, but this album signals his arrival as a bandleader. […]
The original album — pressed by Rome Records in 1971, with an apparent circulation of only 500 copies — has become quite a collector’s item. As its title suggests, the record reunited the popular bluegrass duo, who began playing together […]
There’s something about a cappella gospel music that reminds me of death. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I sang Blue Highway’s poignant “Some Day” at my own grandmother’s funeral. I’ve tapped the Country Gentlemen’s “Calling My Children Home” […]
Dave Evans mines the same soulful side of the mountain as Ralph Stanley and Larry Sparks. You can hear it in his bluesy banjo fills, in the heavy bottom end of his rhythm guitar licks, and in his rasping, gritty […]
One Dime At A Time is North Carolina band the Steep Canyon Rangers’ third album. There’s reason to think they’d just as soon forget about the first, but it’s worth recalling simply as an index by which to judge the […]
The sepia-toned photograph on this record’s cover shows a hoary-headed Stanley with an open Bible in his hands. Looking more prophet than preacher, he might as well be Moses standing atop Mt. Sinai with two tablets of stone. And surely […]
