Review: The Gibson Brothers - Help My Brother

If you google the Gibson Brothers and you get as far as "gibson b," the list of suggestions put forth by the mighty search engine puts the bluegrass group before the Gibson Banjo. Anyone who knows even a little about bluegrass music will tell you that this is a big deal indeed. The Gibson line of banjos are revered by bluegrass pickers the world over; the Gibson Brothers are not: at least, not

Review: Sierra Hull - Daybreak

After listening to Daybreak numerous times to absorb the feel of it, I found such a large Alison Krauss influence that I expected to find her listed as the producer (she's not, the album was co-produced by Barry Bales and Sierra Hull). Giving it some more listening time I found some Rhonda Vincent influences and I'm sure there's more than a few other influences that I'm missing. How could a young up-and-coming musician not be influenced by some of the most talented people in 

Review: Jim Lauderdale, Reason & Rhyme

Well, this is a bit different than the usual tear-it-up fare. Before being given this CD, I didn't know much about Jim Lauderdale, but lo and behold, he's a major Nashville songwriter, a performer who has shared the stage with both Ralph Stanley and Elvis Costello (among many others), a backup singer on countless recordings, and a bluegrass/ roots musician with a strong orientation towards the Grateful Dead. Not only has he performed in a collaborative which reimagines and performs classic Dead albums, he's released three albums

Review: Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press: Memories

Celebrating Bobby's 60th Anniversary as a Professional Entertainer

Bobby Osborne is a bluegrass legend who doesn't seem to put himself in a box called "bluegrass." The Osborne Brothers used electric instruments, steel guitar, harmonica and drums on their albums and Opry shows for many decades, and often made a point of declaring that bluegrass and country music weren't two different things, just variations on the same idea. That essential