Album Review – Mason Via (Self-Titled)
Combining adept flat-picking with top-caliber songwriting and a voice perfectly tooled for bluegrass, Mason Via brings an accessibility and immediacy to the bluegrass discipline.
Reviews
Album Review – Willie Nelson’s “Oh What A Beautiful World”
Why in the world is Willie Nelson still recording and performing music at the age of 91? Or even more perplexing, how is he even still alive, especially after the life he’s lived? The question and the answer are probably one in the same.
Silverada Returns to Austin with Streamlined Lineup
The best live country band in the world stopped into Austin’s Radio East on Friday night (4-25) on their current “Unlit Matches” tour to regale fans in the town the band originates from.
Album Review- Chaparelle’s “Western Pleasure”
Chaparelle is endearing if nothing else, and quickly infectious, appealing to your classic country inclinations, but also tickling some guilty pleasures. Ultimately, it’s hard to not approve.
Album Review – Pug Johnson’s “El Cabron”
Pug Johnson explores the regional dialects of Texas and their intertwined nature, resulting in tasty and sometimes unexpected moments that has many buzzing about their next favorite artist.
Luckenbach Goes Bluegrass for 4th Annual Festival
When you think of Luckenbach, TX, you think of Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua! You think of Willie and Waylon and the boys. Bluegrass isn’t what immediately comes to mind. But for the fourth year.
Album Review – Country Honk’s “Bad Decision”
No record label. No publicist. No big time producer. No problem. They’re still kicking out killer country music. Country Honk might have one the most generic names in the country universe, but you can’t say it’s not accurate.
Song Review – Ernest’s “Gettin’ Gone” (feat. Snoop Dogg)
When word leaked out that Ernest had been spotted in downtown Nashville recently with Snoop Dogg shooting a video, you expected the worst. But as bad as this could have been, it doesn’t sound bad at all.
Album Review – Jon Pardi’s “Honkytonk Hollywood”
As the rest of country music seems to be following Jon Pardi’s lead, Jon Pardi himself seems to be staying static, if not heading in the other direction ever so slightly.
Marty Stuart Unveils Surf Guitar-Inspired Album “Space Junk”
This time around, Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives offer a take on ’60’s instrumental surf and Ennio Morricone Western soundtrack inspired sounds. The result is often breathtaking to behold.
Album Review – The Turnpike Troubadours – “The Price of Admission”
What the Turnpike Troubadours have proven over time is that good songs endure, and better songs grow even better over time. There’s no mistaking it. The Turnpike Troubadours are now legends.
Album Review – The Wilder Blue’s “Still In The Runnin'”
If you’re looking for relief or reparations from the ills of life, you can reach for alcohol or other intoxicants to inoculate you from life‘s fickle and sometimes debilitating moods, or you can reach for the music of The Wilder Blue.
Sturgill Simpson Caps Off Two Step Inn, Tweaks Tour Schedule
Sturgill Simpson (or Johnny Blue Skies) capped off a cold, but action packed weekend in Texas at the Two Step Inn Festival just north of Austin. It was a truncated, but inspired and untethered festival set.
Album Review – The AM’s – “Here Comes That Broken Heart”
Good music never goes out of style. People’s tastes do. Then when they wisen up and the music of the day turns so cacophonous they can’t stomach it anymore, they come back to the stuff that’s always been good.
The Best Country and Roots Festivals in the United States
Acting as if proximity to you or anyone else is irrelevant, and money is no object, what are some of the best experiences you can have listening to music in America?
Album Review – Matt Daniel’s “The Poet”
Matt Daniel is one of those artists clearly touched (or cursed) by the need to perform country music to unburden his soul, but blessed with immense talent to write and express it.
Album Review – Alison Krauss & Union Station’s “Arcadia”
“Arcadia” might not be the best album to introduce your friends to the power of bluegrass, but it might be the ideal specimen to introduce them to the beauty of it.
Album Review – Lola Kirke’s “Trailblazer”
Ready to explore her country noir impulses in full force, she intermixes country songs with more indie rock treatments in an album that is eclectic and explorative, and always forthright and engaging in the writing.
Song Review – Dierks Bentley’s “Cold Beer Can” feat. Stephen Wilson Jr.
The song deserves credit for the emotional-laden arrangement and the attempt to go deeper than 12 oz. But ultimately “Cold Beer Can” is a formulaic beer track for radio.
Album Review – The Moran Tripp Band’s “Jumpers Hole”
They call themselves a rock and roll band, but they’re bursting with country blues, Southern textures, and even some straight up country songs that will fit right in with your sensibilities.
Why Jesse Welles Just Released a 63-Song Album
If you need any further illustration of the creative explosion that Jesse Welles has been the catalyst and accelerant for over the last year or so, appreciate that he just released a 63-song album.
Album Review – Jason Boland & The Stragglers – “The Last Kings of Babylon”
On “The Last Kings of Babylon,” Jason Boland tries to summarize the last 25 or so years in music, from the personal and the professional, to the sacred and the profane.
Grand Ole Opry’s 100th Anniversary Special was Worth the 100-Year Wait
We didn’t really know what to expect from the Grand Ole Opry’s 100th Anniversary celebration on NBC Wednesday night (3-19). We hoped it would be a cavalcade of actual country stars singing actual country music.
The Biggest Takeaways from SXSW 2025
You don’t enjoy SXSW—the annual musical gathering in Austin, Texas every mid March. You endure it. You survive it. Here are Saving Country Music’s biggest takeaways from SXSW 2025.