The first annual Sacred Steel Convention at Rollins College was a two-day affair filled with a powerful sense of family and tradition. Since this event took place outside the confines of the church environment, the steel players were free to […]
Last June I embarked on one of the more insane road trips I’ve pulled off in my 34 years, leaving the annual Twangfest weekend in St. Louis early Saturday morning and hightailing it down to the Texas Hill Country for […]
Scotty Campbell says he feels a little like the town oddball who, year after year, stands on a soapbox and, in the face of indifference, rages at the world. And then one day he’s alarmed to find people are paying […]
Bring up the word “chemistry” in conversation, and chances are good that someone will cringe and relate a terrible story about an experiment gone awry in a high school or college class. Four years ago, however, a new Irish pub […]
Eastern Europe gets a Texas taste of country music via TV tapings People once journeyed miles by covered wagon and horseback to hear Will Rogers, John Phillip Sousa and William Jennings Bryan at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Waxahachie, Texas, 35 […]
For much of his 33 years, Todd Snider has been in almost constant motion. Born in Portland, Oregon, Snider called Northern California, Texas, Atlanta and Memphis home before settling recently in Nashville. Likewise, his music has generally had no fixed […]
“There’s no mystery,” says Wylie Gustafson of Wylie & the Wild West, “to what we’re doin’.” Home in eastern Washington between shows to promote Ridin’ The Hi-Line, his third release on Rounder, Gustafson is smack in the middle of the […]
When I moved off to college, the first thing you did was unpack a big, heavy stereo and play the coolest record you owned as loud as you could. Kids today, I guess they just download files instead of collecting, […]
Just to prove the gods of concert promotion have a sense of mischief, consider the two shows competing for the public’s attention in Toronto on this night. At the cavernous SkyDome, Ricky Martin was shaking his bon-bon atop a vintage […]
There’s no difference between singing a country song in a western suit and then going around behind the curtain and walking out the other side with a tux on and singing the same country song with a pop arrangement. It’s […]
