The Bumper Jacksons are a six-piece Washington DC-based roots music band that mixes jazz, blues, and country. They’ve been honored multiple times as the Mid-Atlantic’s “Artist of the Year” & “Best Traditional Band” at the Washington Area Music Awards. They’ve released three studio albums: Sweet Mama, Sweet Daddy, Come In (2014), Too Big World (2015), […]
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The Way Down Wanderers’ new album, Illusions, reaches beyond the boundaries of bluegrass to span across multiple genres, from pop, blues, and roots rock, even to reggae and rap. This becomes evidently clear by the fifth track, “All My Words,” which combines reggae rhythms and a mid-song rap with a closing Foggy Mountain Breakdown-style banjo. […]
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photos by Michael Aarons Chuck Prophet announced that he and his wife and musical partner, Stephanie Finch, were glad to appear at their “favorite venue in a strip mall that used to be a Christian place of worship.” Despite the tongue-in-cheek remark, he later circled back to say how remarkable it is that Jammin’ Java […]
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Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story details the roughly 30-year odyssey of an independent R&B record label that grew up right in the heart of Nashville. The story of Excello Records leads back Ernie Young and his mostly mail-order record business, Ernie’s Record Mart. Ernie Young came to the record business late […]
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The release of Seneca marks the arrival of Morgantown, West Virginia singer-songwriter Charles Wesley Godwin as an authentic voice in country music. Singing about the “hills where my grandfather worked” with a clear, strong voice, Godwin spins a warm vision of the people of coal country and their lives. He paints with his words, vividly […]
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Greg Brown played to a rapt audience at DC’s elegant Hamilton stage last week. It would be sacrilege to suggest that Greg Brown has the voice of God, and Greg Brown’s father was an open Bible preacher. “We’d have revivals, which lasted a week, to revive us, because we were so tired from so much […]
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Travelin’ Shoes, the new gospel release from Marley’s Ghost, is the group’s third’s collaboration with producer Larry Campbell, former guitarist for Bob Dylan and bandleader for Levon Helm. Larry writes, “This a group whose artistic life blood springs from the deep well of American traditional music. They love it, they’ve lived it, they respect it, […]
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photos by Ari Strauss On Friday evening, fans of the unconventional Greensky Bluegrass packed the Anthem in DC’s Wharf on the Potomac River to for the first show of a two-night stand. In January, Greensky released a new studio album, All For Money, to critical acclaim, and launched a national tour to support the […]
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I met Spencer Pheil when he opened with his main band, the Stable Shakers, for Larry Campbell and Theresa Williams, at Gypsy Sally’s, last September. The Stable Shakers made for a perfect opening act that night. Larry Campbell is one of Americana’s great multi-instrumentalists, having playing guitar for Bob Dylan and led Levon Helm’s band. […]
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Mississippi, both the river and the state, as the great crossroads of America, stands at the forefront of American technological and social development. Riverland (Red Beet Records), the excellent new folk album by Eric Brace, Peter Cooper, and Thomm Jutz, celebrates change in America by focusing on that mighty river. This fitting tribute to the […]
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