Tag Archives: Americana music

How the pedal steel guitar stole my heart

The pedal steel guitar has long been one of my favorite instruments. There’s just something about its sound that can go from quicksilver pure to rough and distorted in the blink of an eye that captured my heart at some … Continue reading

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SUSS’s Heat Haze

Heat Haze picks up where the New York ambient country band SUSS left off with their previous offering, Night Suite left off. That five-song EP, you’ll recall, dropped unexpectedly in October 2021. It took the listener on a nighttime journey … Continue reading

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The Everybodyfields’ Nothing Is Okay

This is one of the saddest albums I’ve heard in a long time. The Everybodyfields are mostly Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews, of Johnson City, Tennessee. They wrote the 12 songs on Nothing Is Okay, their third CD. And they’re … Continue reading

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Angel Olsen’s Big Time

Angel Olsen has been on quite the journey. Since before her 2012 full-length debut Half Way Home she’s been pouring her life experiences into obliquely confessional songs. In the ongoing process of finding her voice and growing as an artist, … Continue reading

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Kelly Joe Phelps’s Brother Sinner And The Whale

Kelly Joe Phelps has gone back to the well and emerged with a deeply satisfying album of deeply spiritual songs. Brother Sinner And The Whale is Phelps’s 10th album since his 1994 debut Lead Me On on Portland, Oregon’s independent … Continue reading

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Cowboy Junkies’ In the Time Before Llamas

John D. Benninghouse wrote this review. Some eleven years ago I had a college roommate who was seemingly in love with all things relating to cowboys, however loosely. I recall his nose planted in the Lonesome Dove series when he … Continue reading

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Arlo Guthrie’s Live in Sydney

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Who said that? Smart guy! [David: It was Peter De Vries, in his 1959 novel The Tents of Wickedness. – ed.] I remember when Arlo Guthrie was The Young Turk. His father’s son, … Continue reading

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José Medeles’s Railroad Cadences & Melancholic Anthems

It’s great to know that there’s still so much great music coming out of Portland, Oregon. This one is as eclectic and as Portland as they come, matching up three excellent and quite different Portland guitarists with a Portland drummer … Continue reading

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Frog Holler’s Haywire

My biggest problem in writing this review of Frog Holler’s excellent new album is how to classify their music. “Alt-country” has become so ubiquitous a tag as to be virtually meaningless these days. And it’s too bad one even has … Continue reading

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The Youngers’ Heritage

I was attracted to The Youngers by the presence of frontman Todd Bartolo, who plays guitar in one of my favorite bands, the Pennsylvania-based alt-country outfit Frog Holler. Though also based in rural Pennsylvania, The Youngers is quite a different … Continue reading

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