John Murry has lived a series of nightmares. At times it plays like a William Faulkner novel, no surprise since he was adopted before birth by his parents in an agreement with a pregnant Cherokee schoolgirl. Raised by his grandmother…
Challenges come in many forms. For Gilliam Welch and David Rawlings one of the biggest was just surviving the hurricane that tore the roof off their Woodland Studio just as Covid was putting the world into a forced hibernation in…
It’s said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but twelve years seems like a lifetime in the music industry. Yet fans waited with bated breath for the fire of Beachwood Sparks to be rekindled. With the release of Across…
Jake Xerxes Fussell seems like music’s answer to Dos Equis’ “the world’s most interesting man.” He hosts a radio show on North Carolina’s WHUP-FM in Hillsborough with Jefferson Currie II every Wednesday afternoon. Covering music from Bob Dylan and June…
The world tends to play tricks on you when you least expect it. Though the Felice Brothers have been recording for almost two decades, singing songs of faith and despair, hope and heartbreak, dealing with every aspect of the human…
Lankum are unruly. While they play traditional Irish music, they don’t play it traditionally. At times this folk group seems closer to playing Irish heavy metal. They assault the senses one minute, then hit another button and come out with…
The Decemberists are one of the most literate bands on the planet. Not that should be a shock since Colin Meloy is also a published author with a series of young adult books to his credit, not to mention a…
Richard Thompson makes music unlike anybody else in the recording industry, and he’s been doing it since the late 1960s. Jamming with Hendrix, covered by a who’s who of the recording industry, received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth. What’s left…
Bill MacKay finds ways to challenge all your notions of what a guitarist is supposed to be on Locust Land. Using more keyboards than guitars, ‘Phantasmic Fairy’, the opening track, suggests he’s doing what he wants rather than using some…
The Avett Brothers may not think so, but they are no ordinary band, and their new, self-titled album proves that point in spades. They have a way of making music that incorporates virtually everything while remaining tinged with folk and…