The newly released album My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall (on the John Prine-founded label Oh Boy Records) features 11 stirring and lively reinterpretations of the songs of groundbreaking songwriter, writer, and producer Alice Randall, who in 1994 became the first African-American woman to write a number-one country hit (Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and […]
Farm Aid 2023 at Noblesville, Indiana on September 23,2023 This year’s Farm Aid, the 38th, was held this past Saturday the 23rd of September at the Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, Ind. in front of a raucous crowd of 23,000 plus. It will surely be remembered as one of the greatest of all these gatherings […]
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Lydia Loveless Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again On her latest release, Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again singer-songwriter Lydia Loveless (she/her/they/them) continues to carve out her unique sound which combines pop, alt-pop, alternative, punk, cowpunk, honky tonk, and classic country into an exhilarating and original mix. The result is a driving, mesmerizing, […]
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Tom Hambridge – Blu Ja Vu One would be hard-pressed to find anyone more involved with the American blues scene over the last thirty years than Tom Hambridge. The singer-songwriter, drummer, and multi-Grammy award-winning producer has worked with a virtual who’s who list of the blues world since the early nineties. With his new release […]
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When I think of the future of country music outside of the formulaic cookie-cutter stuff that currently rules the 21st-century airwaves, a few individuals come to mind that give me hope for the continued vibrant growth of the genre. At the top of my list of male performers are Kentucky native Tyler Childers, Oklahoma […]
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Brian Setzer – The Devil Always Collects When listening to Brian Setzer’s music I am always struck by two things – his overabiding love for early rock and roll and that he is a virtuoso when it comes to playing his guitar. The longtime guitarist of the legendary retro rockers The Stray Cats has steadily […]
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Willie Nelson, on his new album Bluegrass pulls 12 songs from his immense catalog, hand picks a group of crack musicians, enlists his long-time producer Buddy Cannon to assist him and then refashions the songs to sound more like the vibrant and resonant Appalachian music that took its name from Bill Monroe […]
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Tyler Childers – Rustin’ in the Rain When speaking of his new album Rustin’ in the Rain Tyler Childers in typical self-deprecating humility and humor states, “This is a collection of songs I playfully pieced together as if I was pitching a group of songs to Elvis. Some covers, one co-write, and some I even […]
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The first time I became aware of the band Shannon Clark and the Sugar was when I heard their rousing cover of the Marvin Gaye classic “What’s Goin On” off their debut album Memorial Hall back in 2020. Since that time, I have kept track of them and grew more enamored with their release […]
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The Grahams – self titled On their new self-titled album, the husband and wife Americana duo The Grahams take ten songs from their catalog from the last ten years and reimagine and re-record them in a way that is both fresh, exciting and totally creates a new sound for the band. While you can still […]
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