If there’s an official formula for sibling music-making, it goes something like this: Brothers are raised harmonizing as soon as they can speak; appear on talent shows dressed in retrospectively embarrassing matching wardrobe; gain acclaim and fame for their sympathetic […]
When he was growing up, Duane Jarvis’ family lived in an assortment of places up and down the West Coast — the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland. His professional music career began in Portland, just after he graduated from […]
“I’m the granddaddy of this band,” laughs Mic Harrison, feeling a bit elderly these days. At 35, Harrison has almost 10 years on the other members of the Faults: bassist Paxton Sellers (a fellow former V-roy), guitarist Robbie Trosper, and […]
Because I work at home, and my wife will tell you I’m not a tidy fellow, I tend to schedule business meetings at coffee shops. Or maybe it’s a final nod to my old hometown, Seattle. Or perhaps I just […]
From backstage at every show you can see them, pressed in tight with their faces turned up. The music goes out over them and holds them in sway, boys along with girls, women along with men. Some are wearing cowboy […]
The young gents in the Old Crow Medicine Show are well-versed in the history of stomp. “We found that there’s a lot of music in the past with the same kind of high energy — the same ‘stomp’ — that […]
Patty Loveless was eleven years old when her parents picked up and left their home in Pikeville, a small mining town in southeastern Kentucky, to rent a place a couple hundred miles west in Louisville. It was hardly a happy […]
On the eve of putting the finishing touches on his new album, No More Mr. Lucky, Randall Bramblett was going over its songs with his wife, looking for common themes and traits. See Through Me, his exceptional 1998 album and […]
There’s a breathless quality to much of bluegrass singer Rhonda Vincent’s promotional material; “too good to be mortal,” a choice quote from former Billboard country music editor Ed Morris, appears on almost every piece. But here’s the funny thing: When […]
Today’s bluegrass seems to be performed largely by instrument contest winners — young men who locked themselves in their rooms at age 12 to practice and who forgot to come out and have a life. So longtime bluegrass fans welcome […]
