Photo by Maria Camillo by S. Victor Aaron Sometimes it takes a fantastic cover of a song to make you realize how good the original has always been. This One Track Mind is about one of those times. When I think of the eponymous Pat Metheny Group album from wayRead More

by S. Victor Aaron 2009 has had its share of the blues but there were plenty of blues practitioners making the best of the hard times, as we saw a slew of fine releases by them last year. There were seven of those that really stood out to me, aboveRead More

by Nick DeRiso Violinist Mark O’Connor continues one of the most fascinating, brilliantly original re-imaginings of classical music in our time with “Nos. 2 and 3.” He works not in the dusty pages of the familiar, but in a refreshing vernacular — and, along the way, imbues this OMAC RecordsRead More

by Nick DeRiso From the South, but not really, Diana Jones sings with an unforgettable, old-time lonesomeness — like a late-arriving featured act at an old Carter Family jubilee. She then expands on the familiar bluegrass vocabulary with a character-driven, literary touch, nowhere to better effect than on the newRead More

by Pico As an acclaimed maestro on a variety of stringed instruments (violin, mandolin, guitar) Mike Marshall can call upon just about anyone in the field of progressive bluegrass to accompany him on an album. For his fresh-out-of-the-oven album Mike Marshall’s Big Trio, he sticks with acoustic guitar and enlistsRead More

Click through the titles below for Something Else! reviews on a number of last night’s key Grammy-award winners, including Robert Plant and Alison Krauss — who must have charley horses from going up and down to the podium so often. We also review B.B. King, whose terrific “One Kind Favor”Read More

We think of him as a famous jazz guy. But those who knew Charlie Haden as a child remember him as a bluegrass prodigy in a traveling musical group of relatives.

There’s been a plethora (love that word) of releases on the rock side of the genre ledger that has demanded by attention. You see, the rocksters listed here were all riding high back in the seventies, so naturally, I was curious to see if they still got “it.” In eachRead More

NICK DERISO: Used to be, liking the Alabama-born Sullivans was akin to being part of some secret society. Nobody knew ’em. But the ones who did, well, they flat-out loved ’em. Then, somewhere along the way, Jerry and Tammy Sullivan went from being little-known gospel greats to gosh-dog superstars. We’reRead More

by Pico OK, I’ll say it up front: I’ve never been a fan of The Grateful Dead. Don’t know for sure why; after all, I love extended improvisations and the confluence of different styles. And it’s not that I don’t like jam bands; I can listen to the Allman BrothersRead More