I made it through the first seventeen minutes of last night's Grammy Awards before I went upstairs to where the kids hang out and watched a couple episodes of The Wire, Season Five on DVD. My wife was doing work in front of the downstairs television so she kept the show on, and I caught or heard a few snippets like the Beach Boy's reunion, Glen Campbell's thing and Jennifer Hudson's tribute. From what I saw, it pretty much lived up to my expectations. And while you might…

Even if Linda Chorney doesn't take home an award for Americana artist of the year or whatever she's been nominated for and despite the three and a half hours of televised multi-national major music corporation and record label masturbatory love fest, with staged and over-produced performances that will have many of us…

Getting ready to run out this morning; too much on my plate. But as I scanned the news, it caught my eye that Don Cornelius, the heart and host of the American television program Soul Train passed on early this morning in a rather sad way. Police report that the 75 year old man died of a self-inflicted gun shot. 

I know...this has nothing to do with alt. country, Americana...whatever that means, folk, blues or roots music.

Bullshit. 

For the…

If I haven't been been a huge Pines fan for a few years, if I didn't think Red House Records is one of the greatest indie record labels in business today, if their incredible banjo player Michael Rossetto wasn't someone I've known and worked with in the past, if founding band member David Huckfelt hadn't…

You might think in this day and age of fast-flying megabytes and high speed connective connections you'd pretty much find out information about someone special with the whiz of a search engine and a series of clicks. No. Not always I suppose. If you are anything like me, a music junkie who flips through webpages the way one used to flip through the stacks of new albums, you're always on the lookout for something new, something unfamiliar, something wonderful. 

And so it was…

Lucas Diltweiler from Pine Bluff , AK. would be the first to tell you how shocked he was a couple of months ago when he received a letter from NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) advising him that he had been nominated for "best hummed song of the year" for 2011. A 72 year old…

Go to a show or festival these days that feature folk or Americana music and it seems that you can always find a group of people off in the corner who are enjoying a lively discussion about one of the most underrated groups of our generation. A band easily waved off for their lightweight and childlike…

Twenty-two years ago this month the body of guitarist Jackson Whitman was found in a dark alley by a very drunk man who literally stumbled and fell on top of him. The man's last name (if I remember to spell it correctly) was Timmons and he too was living in South Nashville trying to earn a dollar or two as a session…

I once met Sam in his downtown Philadelphia store on Chestnut Street, when he came up and introduced himself to me. I doubt I was yet fourteen. "Hi...I'm Sam Goody", he said extending his hand, and he asked if he could help me find something. I thought he was just a crazy old man and kind of shook my head while walking away. When I mentioned it to Lenny, who sold guitars and amps upstairs, he confirmed that it was indeed Sam Goody, the man whose name was on the front of the…

Paste Magazine calls is "an exhaustive four-CD collection of Bob Dylan cover songs" that features a "ridiculously eclectic array of artists". Stereogum, which started to stream the four CD tribute(January 24th release date) this week (sorry...it seems gone today), says it's "massive and mind-boggling", while Rolling Stone declares it's "a moving tribute".…