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Billy Strings is the Future of Bluegrass « American Songwriter
In his mid-teens, Billy Strings was the lead guitarist in a Grand Rapids, Michigan, prog-rock band called A Day of Moments. He was a high school dropout
Before his death last year, Dr. Ralph Stanley was known for immortalizing songs that had their roots in old-time Appalachian music. It just made more sense for marketing and journalistic reasons to lump him into the broader bluegrass category, even though he stated more than once that Bill Monroe’s sound was far more representative of true bluegrass than his was. One of the songs from the mountain tradition that Dr. Stanley made his own for decades was “Little Maggie.”
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https://americansongwriter.com/2017/02/ralph-stanley-little-maggie/?mid=431
America Unfiltered: The World Of Old-Time Music
Ruth Ungar understands that a lot of people can’t tell the difference between bluegrass and old-time music. Anytime they see a group with a fiddle and banjo, they call it a bluegrass band. It’s like older people who think all hip-hop or punk rock sounds the same, she says; it’s like people from the city who think all trees are the same.
But once you start paying attention, you learn the difference between oaks and maples, between gangsta rap and backpack rap, between bluegrass and old-time. And the more you know, the more pleasure you can pull from the forest or from the music. Click here to read more.
Song Premiere: 10 String Symphony, “Weight Of The World”
10 String Symphony sounds just like its name suggests. The group consists of two 5-string fiddle players who, together, cook up a dynamic musical stew that covers a wide spectrum of acoustic-based roots music, hitting on old-time, folk and bluegrass, all delivered with a dash of rock and roll spunk. Click here to listen.
The String Cheese Incident turn 20 this year, and they’re marking the occasion with a new album, Song In My Head. It’s the Boulder, Colorado bluegrass-inspired jam band’s first studio album in nine years, and it’s a doozy. Watch an exclusive in-studio performance of the poignant album track “Struggling Angel.”
“The song was written as a tribute to our friend Sara Gewald,” bassist Keith Moseley says. “Sara unexpectedly took her own life in March, 2012, and the song was born out of the grieving process. The melody and lyrics both came very quickly in a fit of inspiration as we struggled to deal with the loss of a good friend. Although the lyrics are a somber reminder of the loss of a friend, the chorus and melodic outtro are intentionally uplifting — a celebration of life.”
The String Cheese Incident will hit the festival circuit next month; you can catch them at Beale Street Music Festival, DelFest, Wakarusa, Electric Forest and the Lockn’ Festival.
Full Album Stream: Alice Gerrard, Bittersweet
She may be one of the pioneering females in bluegrass music, but Alice Gerrard doesn’t enjoy performing alone.
“I have never considered myself primarily a singer/songwriter,” she says. “Mostly, I’ve worked and performed with other musicians: Alice & Hazel, The Harmony Sisters, Tom, Brad & Alice….”
She’s talking about Hazel Dickens, the influential folksinger who formed a harmony duo with Gerrard in the mid-‘60s. Gerrard went on to influence some of the biggest roots musicians of the 20th century, including Emmlyou Harris and Bob Dylan. She even joined the royal family of American folk music by marrying Mike Seeger. In her solo career, though, she’s always been more of an underground figure, sometimes waiting as long as ten years between her solo albums. Her latest, Bittersweet, doubles as her first record to feature all original material.
Click here to continue reading and listen to the full album stream of Alice Gerrard's Bittersweet
The Howlin’ Brothers Throw Down At The AS Office
Outfitted with a fiddle, banjo, a guitar with a hole in it, a bass and a wooden plank to “shuffle” on, it’s safe to say that Nashville’s The Howlin’ Brothers live up to their name. The bluegrass trio released their debut album, Howl, earlier this year and are now touring across the country. They stopped by the office recently for an old-fashioned crooning session and effectively transported us straight to a country back porch.
(Source: americansongwriter.com)
Song Premiere: Elephant Revival, “Birds and Stars”
Elephant Revival will play the Telluride Bluegrass Festival this weekend, but don’t expect the band to trot out a bunch of boot-scootin’ Appalachian hoedowns. Since forming in 2006, they’ve has cast a wide net with their music, flirting with everything from Celtic folk to 1940s jazz to Southern folk-rock. On “Birds and Stars,” the opening track from their upcoming album, These Changing Skies, the bandmates swirl their coed harmonies, banjo riffs and fiddles into a folksy watercolor. Ryan Hadlock, still flush with success after producing the Lumineers’ debut, recorded the album at Bear Creak Studios.
“‘Birds and Stars’ was written in a flash,” says Daniel Rodriquez, who bounces between guitar, banjo and vocals throughout the album. “Guitar, pen, pad, a candlelit ethereal setting. It was written two weeks before we went into the studio, and it was orchestrated in the studio. It came out just how I heard it, and more! Everyone in the band performed it splendidly. There’s a freshness to it because its’ such a new piece. The yearning, the quenching — it’s all there. It’s a lure into the splendor.”
Look for These Changing Skies on September 3.
Click here to continue reading and listen to the premiere of Elephant Revival’s “Birds and Stars”