One Writer’s 2025 Musical Wish List While 2024 lacked in, well, most positive qualities, it overflowed in musical bounty. From a Hurray for the Riff Raff record that represented today’s America better than any radio country wastrel could ever pretend to, to Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) cementing her spot as one of our very best songwriters, […]
Americana Highways 45 RPM 2025 (Reasons to Purchase Music) 2024 was a fantastic year for music and a shit year for pretty much everything else (November 5 still stings). Music, as it so dependably does, helped explain how we were feeling during the darkest of days, and knowing that you’ll be going to a show […]
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Favorite Albums of September 2024 You voted! And now the results from the readers’ vote for favorite albums of September 2024 releases are in! Congratulations top ten! What a great bunch of albums this month, and this month’s competition was fierce! We had almost 18,000 voters! Check out the list just to see what else […]
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AmericanaFest 2024 “Must See” It’s time for AmericanaFest 2024! I’m highlighting some must-sees for anyone else who’s making the trek to Nashville, as well as sharing my choices for the Americana Awards (to be held Wednesday evening at the Ryman Auditorium). My ground rules for the musts – they have to be folks I haven’t […]
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MJ Lenderman Manning Fireworks MJ Lenderman’s songs come from the first modern-day generation of kids who hear, “You have to go to college!” and call us olds on our bullshit. Not (necessarily) because he didn’t go (he did). No, this 25-year-old Asheville-based singer-songwriter-guitar mangler defies both description and norms – his music doesn’t fit neatly […]
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