Have you ever wondered what would happen if surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel made a movie about Richard Petty, the king of NASCAR? The Austin Lounge Lizards have. They even wrote a song about it, “The Illusion Travels By Stock Car (Petty/Bunuel)”, one of many strange and delightful ditties on their new Sugar Hill release Never [...]

You may not know the name Bryan Sutton, but you’ve almost certainly heard his work. A former member of Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder, Sutton, just 27, has quickly established himself as one of Nashville’s most sought-after session guitarists, appearing on everything from the Dixie Chicks’ Fly to Hayseed’s Melic. And he’s a key member of [...]

Like Frank Sinatra Jr. and Hank Williams Jr., Ralph Stanley II carries the considerable burden of a father’s legendary musical name. Unlike Sinatra and Williams, though, Ralph Stanley’s boy has had the advantage of singing and learning right at his daddy’s side. (True, Frank Jr. did serve from time to time as his father’s musical [...]

Singer-guitarist Richard Bennett’s choice of material for his second release on Rebel Records could serve as a blueprint for the perfect hard-core country-bluegrass album. All the ingredients are here: bluegrass classics by Bill Monroe, Jimmie Skinner and Jim & Jesse; a George Jones tune (“Old, Old House”); fine original songs of love gone wrong by [...]

Let’s hear it for the over-70 generation! On this rare solo recording, dobro master Josh Graves, along with fellow septuagenarians Kenny Baker (longtime fiddler with Bill Monroe) and Curly Seckler (former mandolinist and vocalist with Graves in the Foggy Mountain Boys), show that the old folks still know how to boogie. Graves is the man [...]