Monthly Archives: February 2006

Rory Gallagher’s mention brings a certain vision: denim jeans and a flannel shirt. An old Strat with very little finish left. High-spirited yet authentic blues and rock. Consummate musicianship. A CD box set also brings a certain vision: packaging the music parts into a greater whole. Both are represented clearly in this new offering. Gallagher, [...]

When asked to name the two most influential mandolin players of the last twenty years most mandolin aficionados will say Sam Bush and David Grisman. Although they have shared the same stage and often jammed together, they’ve never released any joint studio recordings playing together. Hold On, We’re Strummin’ rectifies this serious oversight. Recorded at [...]

Chet Atkins has a deserved reputation as a great guitar player and all-around nice guy. So it’s a pleasure to see a book that is part biography and part history of his personal guitars. Atkins was no guitar collector. He owned a number of nice instruments over the years, but they were his tools of [...]

For his latest album, the “Swamp Fox” came up with a cool concept: half solo vocals, half duets with five of his favorite female singers, on a collection of new originals and collaborations, book-ended by a pair of instrumentals. After the opening gut-string instrumental, “Gabriella,” the first voice heard is Shelby Lynne’s on “Can’t Go [...]

Don’t let the spelling of her first name lead you to believe Alecia Nugent is one of those overly affected country divas the labels trot out with lugubrious regularity. Instead, her debut album harkens to the days when bluegrass was new and unadorned voices with a country twang were the norm. Populated by refreshing neo-traditional [...]

After doing one thing for 40 years, you either get really good or you die. Larry Sparks refers to himself as “The youngest of the old-timers,” and on his latest, he delivers bluegrass that even Bill Monroe would call “powerful good.” Here, Sparks is joined by a galaxy of bluegrass luminaries, including Vince Gill, Ricky [...]