From my own wide perch here in the Midwest, I’ve generally felt fairly well informed on the Austin, Nashville, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Mississippi, Georgia and Carolina scenes — but when this extraordinarily sprawling, undeniably mature overview of unfiltered American pop/rock/soul/country from the D.C./Virginia/Maryland region hit my music box, it sparked my plugs with something new.
Not [...]

Though the Cajun musical tradition celebrates the spirit of a tightly knit community, Evangeline Made invites a diverse array of visitors to its crawfish boil. Singing in the French patois common in the countryside of southwest Louisiana, backed by the accordion and fiddle that call waltzers and two-steppers to the dance floor, an variety of [...]

I should probably tell you how the Posies’ Frosting On The Beater nursed me through a particularly bad breakup, but that’s private and you don’t need to know. Suffice to say anything Ken Stringfellow does is likely to have a special place in my heart, and Touched bends over backward to earn every inch of [...]

When twentysomething Californians find country music, it’s generally through identifiable local heroes such as the Byrds and Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers. That must have seemed like the long way to get to the country for the Weary Boys, who preferred to draw a straight line to Hank Williams and Bill Monroe and [...]

From the hippie-infested hills of Nederland, Colorado, comes Yonder Mountain String Band, purveyors of “Colorado’s Nakedest Bluegrass.” With Town By Town, the band’s second studio disc (there’s a live record as well), the hard-touring foursome seems poised for success.
Produced by genre guru Tim O’Brien, who sits in on fiddle and bouzouki, Town By Town features [...]

Nashville guitarist David Andersen nicely blends jazz and country influences into a cool, yet energetic and harmonically imaginative approach. Andersen is able to execute intricate, dazzling runs, deliver crisp turnbacks in mid-solo, or craft elegant, clean melody runs and sweeping answering rhythms. But he displays his more sentimental side on Countrypolitan, a self-produced solo disc [...]

“Daddy drinks because you cry,” sings Earl Brooks on “Daddy Drinks”. The song is a sweetly shuffling number with a nimble banjo line, Brooks’ voice hovering between hurt and humor without ever showing its hand. It perfectly encapsulates the charm of the Crop Circles’ approach, mixing rural heart and urban irreverence into its country-rock blend.
Brooks [...]