Lone Piñon’s fourth album explores the rich variety of regional music found in Northern New Mexico, music with far-reaching global roots. Aside from some guest vocalists, Lone Piñon is essentially… Read More →
Kentucky Fiddlers Home Recordings: Volume 1—Fleming and Bath Counties (Various artists)
It has been nearly a quarter-century since Rounder’s Traditional Fiddle Tunes of Kentucky: Up the Ohio and Licking Rivers was released, featuring field recordings made between 1972 and 1995. For… Read More →
Stony Run (Ken and Brad Kolodner)
Variety is the spice of life. This is one of my favorite aphorisms, one that will usually get a friendly eyeroll from my wife of 33 years, right up there… Read More →
Hello Stranger (Eliza Meyer)
An old-time CD with an emphasis on singing! What a great idea, and well-executed with Eliza Meyer’s debut CD. This is not purely an old-time CD; but there is enough… Read More →
Acorns (Ben Winship)
When ticking off regions renowned for old-time string-band music, one is not likely to mention Teton Valley, Idaho. But Idahoan Ben Winship fondly describes his work as musician-songwriter-producer as taking… Read More →
Appalachian Fiddle Music: Featuring 43 Fiddlers and 188 of Their Tunes (by Drew Beisswenger and Roy Andrade with Scott Prouty)
As the helpful introduction makes clear, this is no ordinary tune book. It’s likely to spend as much time near your reading chair or laptop as on your music stand.… Read More →
A Storyteller’s Story: Sources of Banjo Dancing (Stephen Wade)
“The banjo is a world of sound,” Mr. Wade informs us at the start of this musical autobiography. This 2019 album commemorates the 40th anniversary of the 1979 debut of… Read More →
Erwin A. Thompson: The Music Breathed Him
November 9, 1915-March 28, 2015 If you have ever played or heard “John Short’s Tune,” a lively polka, then you have met my father, Erwin A. Thompson. He passed the… Read More →
National Heritage Fellowships
West Virginia old-time fiddler and banjo player John Morris is among the 2020 National Heritage Award Fellows. Also receiving the nation’s highest honor for folk tradition-bearers from the National Endowment… Read More →
In Quarantine
In 2020, old-time music has been thriving in the virtual world, with a huge array of concerts, classes, jams, and other offerings taking place on Facebook and elsewhere online. This… Read More →
Attic #21: Fiddle and Guitar
One of the popular, recurring topics of discussion, debate, disagreement, and disputation among fans of old-time music is the question of when guitars began to be used as accompanying instruments… Read More →
Defiantly Joyous, by the True and Trembling String Band
There were a lot fewer people playing old-time music in the early 1970s than now, and when people living nearby found each other and started playing together, they often did… Read More →
Things Left Behind, by Thornton Spencer
Thornton Spencer’s fiddling chugs and sings on Things Left Behind, released by the independent label Never Met a Stranger in September 2018. These 12 tunes and two spoken tracks were… Read More →
Tell It to Me: Revisiting the Johnson City Sessions
In 2013 Bear Family Records released their impressive four-CD set with hard-bound book The Johnson City Sessions 1928-1929: Can You Sing or Play Old Time Music?,reviewed in the OTH (Vol. 14… Read More →
Tom Mindte & Mason Via (self-titled)
The close harmony-singing, mandolin- and guitar-driven brother duets of the 1930s such as the Blue Sky Boys, Monroe Brothers, and others, arguably saw their enduring popularity and influence appear mainly… Read More →
Mike Bryant and Paul Brown (self-titled)
I became deeply interested in American vernacular music in the mid 1980s. It was an interesting and challenging time to find recordings. The record business was in flux. Older LP… Read More →