Until arriving in Tennessee a few months back I had no notion that the entire thriving subgenre of gospel bluegrass existed. That gospel was part of the bluegrass canon was inescapable, for one inevitably reads about the influence of shape note gospel singing on the formulation of the genre, but that specialists existed, had [...]

Greg Klyma wears his influences on his sleeve—literally, on the CD sleeve—on his group’s second CD. As the group sits around a table, a Bob Dylan songbook is cracked open. On the floor is a Dylan poster, a Waylon & Willie album jacket, and 8×10 photos of all four Beatles.
That may reveal where [...]

In Oklahoma there is a spirited roots-oriented music that is simply referred to as “red dirt music.” The tag didn’t come from any record company publicist or music journalist but from the musicians themselves, who all migrated to the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. This loosely knit group [...]

The story reads like a publicist’s dream come true: “Local band records a song for a compilation album put out by the Business of Music class at a Community College. Song becomes huge radio hit. Band records album with former Tom Petty drummer Stan Lynch as producer. The result is one of [...]

Abra Moore’s acclaimed 1995 album Sing may have been ahead of the wave. Joan Osborne hadn’t made a market for her voice, west-Brit techno-ballad innovators had not fully hippified new age digitality, and Americana radio had yet to break the surface. Strangest Places might just catch on, but then, it could be a [...]

Thanks to so much homogenized music populating the airwaves, country-pop has somewhat of a bad name—but it needn’t be that way, as this record by Richmond, Virginia, singer-songwriter Janet Martin proves. The 12 tracks on Cloud Cover encompass a variety of styles and genres. Tammy Rogers’ spirited fiddling turns an ordinary pop song into a [...]

In the liner notes to Evangeline, Gary Lucas says, “I just want to give you an orgasm with the guitar.” A bold mission, but one that Lucas almost manages to carry out over the album’s 15 tracks.
Lucas was the guitarist for Captain Beefheart before an ongoing career that has encompassed both solo albums and a [...]

On her sophomore solo disc, Canadian songstress Julie Doiron comes out swinging — not with fists, but from a porch swing on a Sunday morning. Formerly of disbanded pseudo-psychedelic popsters Eric’s Trip, Doiron previously had released an album on her own label, Sappy, under the moniker of Broken Girl. She has now dropped that tag [...]

It’s been 23 years since Dan Fogelberg released his Souvenirs, so it’s probably okay for Scott Joss to use the title. Not that there’s any resemblance between Fogelberg’s heavily-produced, angelic-choir folk-rock and Joss’ spare California country. The fiddler in Dwight Yoakam’s touring band, Joss has the same throwback mentality, and echoes of Hank Williams, Merle [...]