While there are quite a few notable festivals that begin earlier than late April, many of us kick off the festival season by trekking to not your normal community college, the Wilkes Community College in the rolling hills of north central North Carolina where MerleFest has been held every year since 1988. Named in honor of Merle Watson who lived nearby, 2014 marks the second festival since Merle's father, Doc Watson, passed away. And as sorely his…

BOBBY BARE JR.

Undefeated (Bloodshot)

Bobby Bare, Jr. could've phoned in a career. He could've exploited the fact that he s the son of Country Music Hall of Famer Bobby Bare, instead, he blazed a path of unique songwriting…

Curtis’ Flying Dream is carpeted wall-to-wall by songs that explore the many shades of ‘love.’

This year Maine bred Catie Curtis celebrates quarter-of-a-century as a recording artist. Commencing with the self-released, cassette-only album Dandelion (1989), Curtis’…

Who knew that Choral flavoured Folk music could be this cool?

When I first encountered Bridie Jackson and the Arbour three years ago they were like a breath of fresh air blowing across a very stale and dusty Folk music scene; and nothing has changed in the intervening years; apart from them getting better.

For once it is genuinely difficult to point you to individual tracks as this is; as we used to say, a conceptual piece that is best heard in its entirety so…

Miss Tess and the Talkbacks are an edgy band.  Edgy in a good way.  From song to song you never know what kind of potion the band will cook up for the listener.  They are masters at so many different styles and when all is said and done, they’re just plain awesome.  Grooving modern vintage music is what they sometimes call their genre and that’s perfect.  It’s a little bit old and a little bit contemporary and it’s just fine by…