Tag Archives: Bluegrass music

Various artists’ Goodbye Babylon

Crossroads. Everybody knows the story about Robert Johnson at the crossroads, selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for the ability to play guitar like a fiend. But the real crossroads in American music is gospel. Gospel music is … Continue reading

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The Avett Brothers’ Mignonette

The Avett Brothers join acts like Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show and the Legendary Shack Shakers to bring a rock ‘n’ roll sensibility to Southern stringband music. The Avetts draw on the Piedmont blues, bluegrass and country of their … Continue reading

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Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer’s Music For Two and Obstinato

Banjo vertuoso Béla Fleck, having already pioneered and deeply explored the intersections of bluegrass, jazz and pop in a 20-year recording career, in 2001 recorded a double Grammy winning disc of “classical” music, Perpetual Motion. It leaned heavily to Baroque … Continue reading

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The Gibson Brothers’ Bona Fide

The Gibson Brothers, Eric and Leigh, hail from upstate New York, and they play a brand of bluegrass that’s influenced by New England folk music as much as by Appalachian string bands. They have top-notch picking (Leigh on guitar, Eric … Continue reading

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Vassar Clements’ Full Circle

Vassar Clements was the first fiddle player whose playing I fell in love with. I’ve always just naturally gravitated to the guitar, but Vassar’s playing on the legendary Will the Circle Be Unbroken album made me sit up and pay … Continue reading

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Doc Watson and Frosty Morn’s Round the Table Again

Doc Watson is indeed “a legend,” as he is introduced at the beginning of this live disc. With its second live Watson release in as many years, Sugar Hill has bookended the extraordinary career of this blind guitarist and singer … Continue reading

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Hot Rize’s So Long of a Journey and James King’s Thirty Years of Farming

Here are two discs from very different places on the spectrum of contemporary bluegrass music. Hot Rize, based in Boulder, Colorado, was an innovative band capable of playing straight bluegrass with the best of the traditional bands, as well as … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ O Sister!

If mainstream country music was dominated by men in its early years, the same was doubly true of bluegrass. With a few exceptions, bluegrass has been largely a men’s genre for much of its history. But women have always been … Continue reading

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Doc Watson’s Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City

It’s hard to come up with enough superlatives for Doc Watson, one of the holy trinity of innovative and influential country guitar players, along with Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. But Watson is more than a guitar picker. He’s a … Continue reading

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