In what’s officially Katrina Cain’s debut full-length album, she presents personal vignettes with palpable emotions in songs that are ultimately very enjoyable and even fair to call accessible thanks to her superior vocal capabilities.
It’s Alicia Blue’s fearlessness to speak about her experiences often free of metaphor and innuendo that makes the music novel. But it’s her voice that really separates her from the herd. So confidently delivered and character-filled.
From the festival’s inception, the clear goal is to honor the great Earl Scruggs legacy by bringing in artists of all backgrounds, motivated by a love of the banjo and the music in its various forms, with the intention of inspiring future generations.
For those of you that love to put on an old George Jones record and pretend like the last 50 years of country music never happened, the music of Jason James will be as welcomed as that first bit of crisp autumn air.
Bradshaw takes that same blisteringly ambitious and expansive approach to writing songs, and also brings it to producing and arranging them. certain songs and moments absolutely overwhelm you on this album.
The Earls of Leicester, a bluegrass super-group featuring dobro legend Jerry Douglas and other fantastic players put on a show that absolutely packed a punch. They were followed by the renowned master of the banjo, Béla Fleck.
It’s never too late to start a new tradition, especially when it’s one that honors and pays forward so many old traditions, and in such a historic place. That’s what songwriter Hayes Carll, The Band of Heathens, and Luckenbach TX are doing.
Chasen Wayne and his band The Honky Tonk Machine are patently uninterested in simply making conventional country music. They’re seeking to reach uncharted territory along the frontier of everything that music can be.
This album’s a total vibe in a “push play and let it roll” kind of listening experience. Their fifth album is solely devoted into leaning into what they do best, which is capturing a mood that reminds you of the late ’70s.
In 1,000 parallel universes, it feels like Billy Strings only ends up as an improbable arena-level bluegrass star in one of them. But luckily, that’s the universe the rest of us inhabit with him.
It was only a few years ago when it felt like writing a love letter to the Austin music scene would be almost an impossibility. But it feels a bit different now. Post pandemic and with a renewed interest on the creative arts scene…
Whether through his work with the New Orleans-based music collective The Deslondes, or his numerous collaborations with other performers, or his first solo album a few years back, some probably recognize the name Riley Downing.
Tony Hannah’s Love It Or Leave It is one of those albums you don’t really need to make a convincing argument for. You simply press play, and the music does the rest. It’s so hard to find fault in, and so easy to fall in love with.
Though the rest of the world knows him as the frontman for the new wave rock and roll band The Killers, he might have just accidentally hauled off and made an Album of the Year contender in country.
Zach Top’s career feels like it’s at a crossroads. Smartly, Zach Top has released two new songs in hopes of re-igniting some of that initial momentum behind him. And generally speaking, they feel like they could be valuable in that pursuit.
Kimmi Bitter is country music’s throwback honky tonk sweetheart with a voice like Patsy Cline, and a style like The Ventures. She doubles down on the mod/Countrypolitan/surf/’60s sound that’s so succulent to the ear.
Imparting enthusiasm and fresh perspectives into a very old genre of music—and in a manner that imparts that invigoration into the audience themselves—Bronwyn puts her signature stamp on bluegrass with new album “Rattlin’ Bones.”
There’s no need to close your eyes and suspend disbelief, or stoke the imagination with intoxicants or potions to be transported to the West Texas universe where the songs of Red Shahan dwell among the sandpaper winds.
It’s most certainly a bold work of recorded music. It’s the kind of album that’s like catnip for critics and awards organizations. But it’s also a monogenre blob of influences trying to be all things to all people, while taking a formulaic approach.
Instead of trying to re-create the past and try to meet the lofty expectations, Mike Harmeier and the boys simply focus in on being the best version of themselves they can be with the lineup of the band as it’s presently constructed.
Delightfully unpretentious, and insulated from all the trend chasing back east, they’re just writing, recording, and releasing country songs and records that emulate their heroes, and come with immediate appeal.
Rockabilly music as a genre is well over 70 years old. And yet it survives, coming back in style every few decades as artists from new generations discover it and recognize its coolness and cultural cache.
Wyatt Flores is one of the most thoughtful, honest, expressive, and gripping songwriters of this new generation of Texas and Red Dirt performers. But let’s just be open and clear-eyed about exactly what “Scared of Heights” is.
Ultimately, “Little Miss Twain” will not be what Shania Twain is remembered for. But what you can take away is that getting more personal and pulling from your own life’s story while trying to be more true to yourself always results in better art.