Although she has played roots music since her teenage years and performed in various bands from her early 20s, it wasn’t until she was 36 that Laurie decided to venture out on her own. Her solo recording, Restless Rambling Heart, introduced the national music audience to Laurie’s talents and versatility. The CD, produced by Tim O’Brien, … Continued
A century of forgetfulness and erasure has led to diminished public awareness of the Black string band tradition – and equally diminished numbers of Black string bands. Once numerous, these ensembles have grown few and far between. In recent decades, only one Black string band has emerged per generation. The 1980’s saw the birth of … Continued
For his latest sonic transmission Switched-On, musician Pachy García, aka Pachyman, challenged himself to steer his dub-drenched dispatches towards another dimension. The follow-up to 2021’s The Return of Pachyman, out September 29th on ATO Records, Switched-On is an homage to the generative artistic era when musicians first began manipulating synthesizers to emit gloriously off-kilter bleeps, … Continued
Southern blues rocker, Adia Victoria is a daughter of the South, a born and bred South Carolinian who now makes her home outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is no surprise, then, that stories of the South find their way into her music, into the lyrics she pens and the chords she plays. It has been … Continued
Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time, though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whose adventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live. Born in … Continued
Béla Fleck: Just in case you aren’t familiar with Béla Fleck, there are many who say he’s the premiere banjo player in the world. Others claim that Fleck has virtually reinvented the image and the sound of the banjo through a remarkable performing and recording career that has taken him all over the musical map … Continued
Drive-By Truckers released their third ‘studio’ album Southern Rock Opera on September 11th, 2001. They self-released it on their own tiny Soul Dump label, pressing 5000 copies with a tiny budget they raised by crowdsourcing (as it’s come to be known), raising the money online from fans turned investors. They ended up selling 10,000 copies … Continued
Lucinda Williams’ music has gotten her through her darkest days. It’s been that way since growing up amid family chaos in the Deep South, as she recounts in her candid new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I told You. Over the past two years, it’s been the force driving her recovery from a debilitating … Continued
Across his career, Shakey Graves — a.k.a. the performance moniker of Austin, Texas-born Alejandro Rose-Garcia — has intentionally created thrilling musical adventures tailored to each fan: burning CDs and putting them in personalized decorated bags; building intricate scavenger hunts that send fans in search of unique tapes; and Bandcamp-exclusive releases. “The fans and musicians that … Continued
Vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and poet Eric Mingus has been steeped in the jazz tradition since birth. Born in New York City, son of Charles and Judy Mingus, as a child Eric played underneath the piano while his father improvised and composed, accompanied his father to innumerable rehearsals and performances, and studied cello and music theory with … Continued
