Ann & Phil Case
The Old Step-Stone: A Collection of Old-Time Duets
Dry Run Recordings
4 stars (out of 5)
The Old Step-Stone is the fourth full-length recorded example why Southwest Ohio’s Ann & Phil Case are one of the very best old-time duos working today.
Ann plays a 1929 Martin 0-21 guitar and a handmade 1903 Audinot copy fiddle; [...]
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Crooked Still
Still Crooked
Signature Sounds
4.5 stars (out of 5)
From the opening seconds of Ola Belle Reed’s timeless “Undone in Sorrow,” listeners sense they are in for a treat with Crooked Still’s third album. The promise is fulfilled in each of the album’s 44 minutes.
Crooked Still’s story is well known. As part of the emerging young [...]
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Red Stick Ramblers
Made in the Shade
Sugar Hill Records
4 stars (out of 5)
The Red Stick Ramblers’ Made in the Shade provides a diverse mix of
musical styles and experiences, all inspired by the rich and tasty
musical gumbo of Louisiana. Predominantly filled with Cajun dance
tunes, this album offers something for fans of almost any genre.
The unrushed [...]
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Chris Vallillo
Abraham Lincoln in Song
Gin Ridge Music
4 stars (out of 5)
An album of old-time folk music from and inspired by the times of Lincoln; now there’s a commercial bonanza just a-waitin’! Fortunately, folk singers don’t worry about such matters.
Recently endorsed by the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, Illinois songwriter and musician Chris Vallillo celebrates on his fifth [...]
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Riley Baugus
Long Steel Rail
Sugar Hill Records
4 Stars (out of 5)
Riley Baugus seems to have become everyone’s guest old-time musician of choice, and for good reason. Long Steel Rail places the North Carolina native front and center not only on his Sugar Hill debut, but also among the preeminent purveyors of southern Appalachian music.
Baugus bursts into [...]
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Martha Scanlan
The West Was Burning
Sugar Hill Records
3.5 Stars (out of 5)
Martha Scanlan’s award-winning songwriting afforded the Reeltime Travelers a dimension few contemporary old-time stringbands have enjoyed. Unfortunately, the Travelers are history; however, Scanlan’s compelling compositions continue on her debut release, The West Was Burning.
No one can accuse Sugar Hill of short-changing Scanlan on her supporting [...]
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Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings
Generation Nation
Compass Records
4.5 Stars (out of 5)
Last fall while flipping through channels, I came upon a glorious sounding string ensemble that made me drop everything and watch with rapt attention. It turns out this amazing sound came from Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, and I’d caught the tail end of [...]
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Heidi Clare
I Declare
Self-released
4 Stars (out of 5)
Heidi Clare Lambert is the former Heidi Andrade and the former fiddler of the former Reeltime Travelers. There’s nothing “former” about her fiddling, however. It’s in tip-top form on her debut solo release.
I Declare showcases the virtuosity that frequently kept Reeltime Travelers fans focusing stage left. Heidi Clare dazzles [...]
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Slowdrag
Slow-Fidelity
Corvus Records
3.5 stars (out of 5)
If you take Donna the Buffalo and Old Crow Medicine Show, mix them together, unplug and slow them down, you get Slowdrag.
This Canadian band is made up of Koralee Tonack and Craig McKerron on harmony vocals and guitar, with Paul Bergman on bass, joined on a few tracks by [...]
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Bruce Molsky
Soon Be Time
Compass Records
4 stars (out of 5)
Like the memories Molsky alludes to in the liner notes, these songs are wistful and simple. And this album is sparse, but not monotonous, a collection of tunes rooted in Old Time favorites (“Lazy John/The Bucking Mule,” “Cider,” “John Brown’s Dream”) with [...]
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