Beer, bluegrass, occasional other stuff
You might expect an album that is half bluegrass and half plugged-in country to be a disjointed mess. If we also told you it was recorded by two sets of musicians, in two separate gatherings, on opposite ends of the covid shutdown, you might even wager it would be a complete cluster-eff. And odds are that in the hands of anybody else the new Gibson Brothers release, “Darkest Hour,” might have been just that. In[…]
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She’s a three-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Mandolin Player of the Year award and three times she has been a part of collaborative efforts that have won IBMA honors as the Collaborative Recording of the Year. This fall she is touring with Bela Fleck’s supergroup and Sturgill Simpson’s all-star bluegrass outfit, as well as doing some touring on her own in support of her latest album, 25 Trips. We sat down with[…]
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Keel talks with the Brewgrass Chronicle about his new album “American Dream” For more than 25 years Larry Keel has been a self-described “road dog.” So when the Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of shows he had booked literally all over the world, a guy who was seldom at home suddenly found himself not just stuck at home, but there with more time on his hands than he knew what to do with. Keel did[…]
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A child prodigy, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes picked up a fiddle at the age of 3 and by the time she turned 16 she was off to Boston, having won a scholarship to attend the American Roots Music Program at Berklee College of Music. It was in Boston, in 2014, that she and her bandmates formed Mile Twelve. In 2018 she won an International Bluegrass Music Association Momentum Award for her fiddle playing. This year she is[…]
Read moreYonder Mountain String Band rolled into the Capital Theater in York, Pa., Sunday night for the final stop of a busy fall tour. We sat down with bass player, and founding member, Ben Kaufmann prior to the show for a quick chat about life on the road and dealing with the passage of Jeff Austin amidst the band’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of their debut album, “Elevation.” Ben also filled us in on new[…]
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Our first encounter with Mike Gaumer was just about a year ago in Philadelphia. The band Midnight Flyer had been chosen to open the “Philly Bluegrass Revival” one-day festival event, and its guitar player had a scheduling conflict. Mike, a former Philly kid who now lives in Baltimore, filled in and blew us away with his picking. The fact that he did it while holding the pick in a broken hand made it even more[…]
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Our Smoked Country Jam experience was a little different in a number of ways this year. Last year, our first visit to Ron Kodish’s sweet little hootenanny in the hills, we just made a day trip out of it. We decided before we even started our drive home that night that this year’s stay would be longer. Our plan was to go for all three days of the event. Outside factors, like the need to[…]
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We were sitting under the awning of “The Bommer,” hiding from the sun and enjoying the music and Lisa and Zig’s hospitality simultaneously when we met Bob Keel. He introduced himself. Pretty sure he complimented the site. And he made us feel terrible, because first time we meet the guy first thing we have to say is “sorry, got here late and missed your set.” It’s not bullshit. We were not just being polite. We[…]
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There are few things in bluegrass that have stood the test of time the way the Seldom Scene has. What began as a weekly jam session in founding member Ben Eldridge’s basement made what current lead singer and guitarist Dudley Connell estimates was its 76th appearance at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival last weekend. Held twice each year — in May and in August — this was the 76th edition of the Gettysburg festival. It was[…]
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When Charles Humphrey III suddenly announced last fall that he was leaving the Steep Canyon Rangers, the musical home he helped to build and his main musical focus for 18 years, it caught a lot of fans by surprise. The timing seemed a little odd. The Steeps were about to release a new album, one that included three songs written by Humphries. In a Facebook post announcing his decision, Humphrey wrote: “I’m excited to let[…]
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