Category: Roots

So I’ve been listening to some good bluegrass over the last few days first from The Cumberland River Band and their latest album The Rock Island Express and today I added a couple of more bluegrass albums,  Edgar Loudermilk’s new album Roads Traveled and  Driftwood and their new album Stronger Every Day.

Edgar Loudermilk started playing  bass in his family’s band when he was nine years old and continued in the family band until he was 20, during that time he was exposed in some great music from his famous relatives, The Louvin Brothers. When he was 20 he joined the band Carolina Crossfire. Since that time he has played bass and sung tenor with Rhonda Vincent, Full Circle with Marty Raybon and since 2007 he has played with III Tyme Out. Roads Traveled is his first solo effort and is currently number 24 on the Roots Music Bluegrass Charts and the single “Can’t Live Life” which features a duet with his former boss Rhonda Vincent is 29 on the Bluegrass Music Profiles Top 30! Other friends who helped out on the album include:  Tim Crouch; fiddle, Randy Kohrs; Dobro, Scott Haas; banjo and former Full Circle band-mates Ashby Frank; mandolin and Shane Blackwell;guitar. The picking on the album is great as are Loudermilk’s vocals. Several other friends add vocal assistance. These friends include Marty Raybon, (duet on “Roads Traveled”), Cia Cherryholmes (duet on “It Just Might”), Rhonda Vincent (duet on “Can’t Live Life”), Russell Moore, Randy Kohrs and another former Full Circle band-mate, Glenn Harrell. I particularly liked both the duets with the women Loudermilk’s tenor blends nicely with both Cia on “It Just Might” and “Can’t Live Life” with Rhonda Vincent is just as great. All in all it was a great mix of good picking and singing and will get a lot of plays! read more

So as I looked down the Folk DJ list of airplay for the month of October 2010 the group at number 25 (32nd Top Artist) caught my attention The Blackberry Bushes and their new release Little Bit of Grace. So I headed over to Rhapsody and downloaded the album onto the ZenV. Their music certainly fits in the Americana genre there music is high energy and infectious and certainly will set your toes a tapping. Here’s a description of their music from their Myspace page

Their music is progressive Americana “like someone threw a radio from yesteryear high into the treetops…” Their repertoire of original, bluegrass, and traditionally twisted music is infused with their love of indie, jazz, punk and alternative styles. They have been dubbed the “Mountain Divas” and Olympia’s “Sirens of Indiegrass”. They are Persephone and her sirens singing songs you have never heard but always known. read more

So I listened to a lot of bluegrass today. I started the day with XM Radio Bluegrass Junction and on the way to work I heard a song by Steve Gulley and I thought about the new album that I read about the day that he did with Tim Stafford. So I went to Rhapsody to look for it but they didn’t have it, actually,  I don’t know if it has even been released yet. Anyway they did have other albums so I listened to Tim Stafford’s album Endless Line and then Steve Gulley’s album Sounds Like Home. Both albums were very good listens from two of bluegrass’ best! Tim Stafford was a founding member of Blue Highway,  whose first album won  IBMA’s Album of the Year Award in 1996.  In the February 2010 edition of Acoustic Guitar magazine Endless Line was named one of the best Acoustic Guitar Albums of the last 20 years!  and says that Tim Stafford is  ‘…possibly the most influential guitarist in contemporary bluegrass.’. Other albums that were on the list that Tim appeared or worked on includes: Blue Highway’s Midnight Storm, Michelle Shocked’s  Arkansas Traveler, Alison Krauss’s Now That I’ve Found You,  and The Infamous Stringduster’s Fork in the Road. read more