These cats are good!
Celebrating the IBMA 2025 Award nominees.
Celebrating the IBMA 2025 Award nominees.
Alison Brown doesn’t play the banjo. She plays music on the banjo.
A gay and black performer working in Appalachian music, Blount features “historically informed, beautifully played old-time music.”
Airline travel has its occasional benefits. Earlier this week I had a trip to Boston booked on Jet Blue Airlines. When I sat down in the seat, I glanced at the arm rest and thought, “Hot dog – Jet Blue is the airline with free XM radio!” I whipped out my ear buds and settled in for 90 minutes of the XM station Bluegrass Junction. I love to listen to my own iPod playlist, but it also great fun to settle in to an airline seat or a rental car to catch XM radio’s bluegrass station. Every time that happens I always end up hearing some great new music, and my Boston trip was no exception. On one leg of the trip, the station was featuring one of its staples: a program entitled Track By Track where the DJ plays a full album by a featured artist who provides commentary along the way. This week’s show featured the new Compass Records album Somewhere South of Crazy by the Southern songbird Dale Ann Bradley. Now I’ve …