Gap to Gap
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Growing up just down the road from Doc Watson, Billboard-charting artists Cane Mill Road rock the traditional bluegrass standards they grew up on, yet boldly tackle writing original music that often walks the lines between Bluegrass, Americana, Old-time, and Folk.
The four young men roam the Blue Ridge Mountains backroads driving between Deep Gap, NC and Rocky Gap, VA to meet and make music together – thus the title track of the band's sophomore album Gap to Gap. the title signifies more than just the long hours on the road touring, but the spaces between the bluegrass foundation of the band's youth and the new spaces of music they create together. Honoring the past, the band looks to the future with a blended set of traditional and progressive music.
Al Jones, Billy Baker & Dee Gunter
Just a Memory
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Growing up in Northern Virginia, I quickly became aware of the country music scene in the Washington, D.C.—Baltimore, Md., region. By the 1950s, the sounds from Baltimore caught my ear, especially when I heard Bob Baker and the Pike County Boys and Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys. These two groups typified the sound which not only suited my teenage ears, but was popular with the southerners who migrated from Appalachia to Baltimore in search of employment. Many bluegrass musicians were in and out of these and other similar bands over the next several decades, including Al Jones, Billy Baker and Dee Gunter. more.....
Dellorto Island
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From sheaves of banjo designs submitted to the U.S. Patent Office to entire styles named after its most revered players, inventiveness marks the banjo’s history. The 18th- century slaves exiled to the New World crafted from cultural memory and available resources half-gourds that they strung with catgut stretched down a long handle. The resulting instrument, one witness recalled, produced a “wild pleasing melancholy sound,” while another described the players’ fingers as moving like a handsaw. First-person accounts detailed banjo songs that intensified as they unspooled, each thrumming passage building on the next.
These pre-industrial patterns survived the centuries: a modern clawhammer banjoist at a festival jam, whose right hand rhythmically plies down on steel strings in sawing motion, plays a tune as if entranced. Fellow musicians huddled in the same circle find new ripples within the soulful melody, while others repeat chiming tones. Eventually someone gestures, signaling the tune’s close. more.....
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Growing up in coastal Virginia, I heard my share of bluegrass and old time music. Even as a boy I could hear the differences between the two, as well as their shared roots. But something I didn’t recognize until I relocated to the Appalachian region was that old time musicians in the mountains didn’t always play stately, rural chamber music like the folks I had heard growing up. Out here the music is rough and rowdy, furious and impolite, and plain old fun to listen to as well as play.
That’s Five Mile Mountain Road to a T. They play a highly entertaining style that is as raucous as it is authentic. For the purist, think Charlie Poole and Clark Kessinger, but with a touch of early country and western swing thrown in for good measure. more.....
1939-1949 Radio Broadcasts - 4 CD set
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When Bill and Earl Bolick returned from World War II and the army in 1945, their future looked unpromising. Since 1941, they’d fought in Europe (Earl) and the South Pacific (Bill), while nearly all pre-war Blue Sky Boys records vanished from the catalog. Newer western and honky tonk styles gave their austere hymns and heartbreak songs minimal juke box potential, and Billboard condescendingly dismissed them as “strictly from the haystacks,” claiming their appeal was limited to the “old folks at home.” more.....
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A dozen dynamic duets from Tom Mindte and Mason Via – an eclectic blend of experience and exuberance…..
Mindte is a seasoned, flexible vocalist with enviable mastery of the mandolin and a repertoire that ranges across a multitude of musical genres. Via is a new exciting voice on the scene, combining his Southern musical heritage with a rage for exploring new musical creations and fluid finger work on the guitar. The match-up is nothing short of fine. more.....
I Never Knew
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The music on this album swings because it is performed by musicians who are steeped in the tradition of how to swing. John Colianni has certainly lived a life immersed in swing from the time his parents took him to see Duke Ellington perform at Georgetown University in 1974 and he managed to get back stage and have Duke sign his copy of Music Is My Mistress. His early influences were Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and Count Basie. more.....
Had a Big Time Today
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Had a Big Time Today
Brennen Ernst is a multi-instrumental multi-genre musical daredevil. In his career thus far he has taken on—and mastered—piano, banjo, and guitar, adding tenor vocals and exploring multiple genres—bluegrass and old time, jazz and swing. In this project he focuses on some of his favorite banjo pieces. more.....
Done Gone
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On the title number, Done Gone, Greeson’s bow never seems to leave the strings despite the tune’s multiple switchbacks and hairpin curves. Fiddle standards from many genres demonstrate Greeson’s comfort zone as he easily takes hold on some festival favorites: more.....
Alan Jabbour & Stephen Wade at the Library of Congress
Americana Concert
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“How complicated and powerful beyond our own imaginings are the radiations of what we do.” –Alan Jabbour
Early in the fall of 2016, Alan Jabbour sat at his kitchen table, his face sallow from the illness overtaking his lanky frame. Just now, though, he spoke animatedly. Conversation had turned to the preambles he typically delivered before playing a tune. Alan viewed his monologues—part historical and always personal—as no less central to his live appearances than the fiddling itself. more.....
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Wandering Thoughts
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I first met the Wildmans near their home at a thing called Floydfest. They were strategically camped out beside the Virginia Folklife Stage, where they could experience the great concerts and workshops provided by The Virginia Folklife Program. Originally Inspired by traditional musicians at a local jam at the Floyd Country Store, Eli and Aila began studying with Mike Mitchell, a generous and well respected teacher in the area, and put forth effort to be where the music happens. more.....
All I Ever Wanted
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Every once in a while a tenor voice comes along that underscores the high, lonesome quality that is bluegrass. Bill Monroe had that voice, of course. So did the late John Duffey of the Country Gentlemen and the Seldom Scene. On this recording, Kevin Prater stakes his rightful claim to that quintessential sound.
Kevin’s vocals commanded attention during his years as a multi-instrumental sideman (check out his work with legends James King and Melvin Goins), but he gained an even bigger following once he stepped from the shadows to front his own band. And here, on All I Ever Wanted, he cements the deal, shifting easily from the gritty, bluesy feel of “House of the Rising Sun” to the wistful heart-tugging delivery of the title cut, which he wrote with bandmate Tom Timberlake. Close your eyes on that one and it’s easy to imagine Duffey at the microphone. You’ll get that feeling on many of the other cuts, too. more.....
Tex Rubinowitz & Bob Newscaster
The Original Dixieland Rock 'N' Roll Band
The Old Man Mississippi
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Tex Rubinowitz and Bob Newscaster’s Original Dixieland Rocknroll Band (ODRB) presents a mix of American music from its eclectic origins in the Mississippi River Basin: traditional and original songs; Dixieland horns and rocknroll electric guitar; and a roots style that is familiar yet unique. This project has been in the works for at least two decades and is finally ready for its debut on Patuxent Records. Led by veteran performers/composers, supported by accomplished musicians, recorded by experienced audio engineers, we offer this music from the bottom of our broken hearts
Fountain of the Used-To-Be
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"If you love a song, carry it along." This tenet of Barbara Scott is responsible for this collection of songs.
Though a North Carolinian by birth, Barbara is what one might call a Citizen of the World having lived in such far-flung places as Africa, Spain, and England beginning in the late 1970s before returning to North Carolina in the early 1990s. After such a diverse life's exposure, the songs that Barbara has carried along, perhaps surprisingly, are solidly in the classic Anglo-American tradition. more.....
Vintage Banjo Jam
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