Authentic perspectives on Appalachian music.

Living Local on the Road Being a grassroots touring band means long slogs on the highways of America. With that comes limited eating options—usually an endless cycle of fast food outposts at interstate junctions. Despite a rigorous road schedule, Philadelphia-based edgy acoustic outfit Hoots and Hellmouth have decided they can do better. For the past [...]

Think you know New Orleans music? Think again. While the Neville Brothers and Dr. John are true legends of the Crescent City Sound, listen up as one of the Big Easy’s own dishes on five bands that will make you feel a good kind of dirty. Most of these bands don’t travel much, so consider [...]

Chat with Sam Quinn and you’ll find that he is quite witty, armed with a self-deprecating humor that is both charming and engaging. Strap a guitar on him, though, and Quinn metamorphoses, oozing melancholy with every minor chord and quavering lyric. Quinn rose to the forefront of the indie folk scene as a member of [...]

Banjo visionary Danny Barnes has worn many labels. In the 90s he pioneered punk-grass in the popular unorthodox string band Bad Livers. He’s scored films for acclaimed director Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Dazed and Confused). He’s been a reliable sideman for Texas troubadour Robert Earl Keen and newgrass ace Tim O’Brien. These days, though, [...]

In a manner of speaking, Kevn Kinney’s musical career was down the drain. Having given up on music, Kinney was toiling in an Atlanta-area sewage plant, and it was only after being rescued from potential obscurity by local musician Tim Nielsen that Drivin N Cryin was born and Southern rock history was rewritten. Hailed as [...]

Dispel any notion that Patterson Hood’s new solo record, Murdering Oscar (and other love songs), will be the soundtrack for your next romantic rendezvous. The ominous opening chords of the title track – a tale of gun shots and salvation found at the altar of oneself – are classic Patterson Hood: foreboding, introspective, and most [...]

Bill Wilson has to be mighty proud of his boys. After their early 20 something wanderings took them all over the country, Wilson brothers James, Sam, and Abe returned to their native Charlottesville in 2005, formed Sons of Bill with friends Brian Caputo and Seth Green, and commenced to taking their country-tinged rock and roll [...]

While their Southern rock peers Widespread Panic and Drive-by Truckers have gone on to achieve wider acclaim, Bloodkin has been the understated, and often overlooked, constant on the Athens, Georgia, rock and roll scene for the last twenty years. These purveyors of rustic rock, stewarded by the longtime friendship of Daniel Hutchins and Eric Carter, [...]

For me, whose fingers stumble clumsily across the neck my mandolin, Sarah Jarosz’s virtuosity is simultaneously laudable and damnable; her genius serves as both mighty inspiration and just cause for heaving my mandolin in frustration. Only seventeen, her genius is the stuff of dreams for we aging mortals. On her debut album, Song Up In [...]

Some 40-plus years into his career, Doyle Lawson has certainly gained entrance into the council of bluegrass elders. With Lonely Street, the 34th record with his band Quicksilver, Lawson continues to provide the purest of traditional bluegrass and the sweetest harmonies this side of an angel band. Those harmonies are the trademark of Doyle Lawson [...]

Sarah Siskind is poised for a breakout year in 2009. The much-lauded singer/songwriter, whose songs have been recorded by country artist Randy Travis and bluegrass megastar Alison Krauss (who earned a Grammy nomination for her rendition of Siskind’s “Simple Love”), finished 2008 opening for folk crooner Bon Iver during his recent tour of Europe. Siskind’s [...]

  Smokestack & The Foothill Fury, given name Jarod Yerkes, is a vagabond minstrel, a one-man band, traveling the country with his self-styled punk-country-blues. He summons in equal parts the spirits of Son House and Joe Strummer, belting his raspy baritone over a furious slide guitar and a snare/bass drum rhythm section that he plays [...]

The Old Ceremony is the rare band that can write contemplative, artsy rock ‘n’ roll while not coming across as holier than thou. Walk on Thin Air, the Chapel Hill quintet’s third album, is sometimes bold and brash, often sparse and ethereal, but at all times introspective. Django Haskins, principal poet and songwriter for The [...]

Music festival darlings Donna the Buffalo celebrate their 20th anniversary with their latest offering Silverlined , the band’s seventh studio album to date. Led by founding members, lead guitarist Jeb Puryear and multi-instrumentalist Tara Nevins, DTB doesn’t necessarily break any new musical ground over the course of the album’s 13 tracks.  Instead what they achieve [...]

A meeting of the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Malian desert of West Africa continues to evolve with the music of Toubab Krewe. The Asheville-based quintet just released a live recording of its cross-cultural fusion of traditional Afro groove and roots rock, backed by the energy of a hometown crowd at The Orange [...]