MerleFest. Just saying its name can cause goosebumps and bring forth a flood of memories. Not just me, but other folks I meet along my music travels have the same feelings when I ask them if they have ever been […]
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On the whole, the best music this year told the raw truth — whether it was Hayes Carll’s paean to love and loss or Robbie Fulks’ exploration of his Carolina and Virginia roots. Shovels & Rope turned toward autobiography with […]
As I began looking though the photos from our outstanding photographers, for this week’s column, I noticed a dominance of women artists. That got me to thinking about how every couple of years the music media likes to name a […]
Bluegrass has, I think often unfairly, been seen as culturally and politically conservative. Folks forget that when it first began, it rocked the boat of traditional music, sorta like what bebop was to swing. That tradition continued a few weeks ago in Raleigh, North Carolina, with lots […]
Like it or not, this year’s IBMA World of Bluegrass and Wide Open Bluegrass — the annual convention and super festival of the International Bluegrass Music Association — was dominated by what appears to be the largest generational cohort in bluegrass […]
Americana Fest 2016 has ended. Once again, it was six nights and five days when an international community gathered around its common love and respect for a kind of music that is raw, honest, earnestly human, universal. We could break it […]
The last full-bore music festival I attended was the 2008 Austin City Limits Festival. A great three-day lineup of musicians, but I remember feeling like a disoriented steer in a roundup in the intense heat and the dust, and being […]
Alison Brown leans against a post at the back of the stage noodling on her banjo as the electric keyboard and full drum kit are placed onstage for the final show of Friday night. I sit down in my seat, […]
Mipso’s charming and vivacious fiddler / vocalist / songwriter Libby Rodenbough, who’d been dressed in a startlingly tight, dazzlingly white outfit for their earlier Red Wing performance, said she almost burst (her) eardrums for a front-row dose of Dawes. at […]
This week, I’m featuring the photography of Todd Gunsher, who should be familiar to ND readers as many of his photos have graced this site. I have been meaning to feature more individual photographers since taking over this column, but […]
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