Americana Music Magazine – Bluegrass, Roots, Folk, Blues, and Old-Time

MerleFest, the annual celebration created in 1988 to honor Merle Watson, the son of the late Doc Watson, is gearing up for their spring festival, and it is shaping up to be a classic. After a successful return from the pandemic stricken music scene this past September (’21), the festival returns to its normal late April spot – April 28th, ...

Unless Daryl Mosley is on the road touring, he spends the majority of time hanging out in Waverly, Tennessee. It’s a quaint, Mayberryesque community just west of Nashville where he grew up. As a songwriter, it’s the perfect nest for inspiring ideas – real, salt-of-the-earth people living day to day life with all the joys and sorrow that come with ...

If you met Allen Shadd at a bluegrass jam or backstage at a festival, you might never guess that he’s breathing rarified air in an elite club of only four people in the world—he has won, three times, the National Flatpicking Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas. Shadd carries himself in a casual manner, often pointing out his own perceived weaknesses. ...

From its beginning, from Gatlinburg, Tennessee-based band, Tuatha Dea, has embraced its Celtic heritage and meshed the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland with their own bold blend of mainstream rock, mountain drumming and Appalachian blues to produce a truly unique sound. Family patriarch, band co-founder/leader and Tennessee native Danny Mullikin says, “We’ve been celebrating that heritage for years and ...

Val Storey grew up steeped in country music from day one. Both of her parents were singer-songwriters originally from Roanoke who moved close to Nashville to pursue their dreams of country music success. Her dad even opened a recording studio. It took some trauma trigger her instinct to start making her own music. “My mom and I were in a ...

Drawing their name from Jimmy Martin’s 1958 done-me-wrong song, Rock Hearts came together in 2013, fusing the talents of a bunch of southern New England bluegrass veterans “who love to sing and pick bluegrass, old country tunes, and seek out newer tunes from other genres to ‘bluegrass-ify’.” From the moment they got together, they all knew they had something special ...

Pat Berlinquette had pursued music from a number of angles (punk as a youth, electronic later on) far from the world of Americana. He had also put music aside for a while to build a successful career in marketing. The music never let him go completely, however. After spending about five years of “messing around, picking up the guitar once ...

Growing up in rural Kentucky, about 45 minutes from Nashville, but now somewhat of fish out of water living in Los Angeles, Michael Monroe Goodman’s roots run deep in the Americana soil. “We knew about life, maybe more than city people,” he says. “I’m proud of my home state of Kentucky. You need that strand of where you’re from or ...

Don’t let her diminutive physical stature fool you: Kari Holmes is living large when it comes to her music career—averaging 200 gigs a year (pre-Covid), winning the indie-centric Josie Music Awards Artist of the Year for 2021 (along with four other nominations), and connecting with audiences of all ages along the way. When asked about her audiences, “It’s been interesting, ...

North Carolina native Josh King (a life-long resident of the Greensboro area) grew up surrounded by music. With a church pianist grandfather, it’s no surprise that the church was his earliest influence, including a lot of singing in harmony. After the typical abortive attempt at piano lessons around age 10 or 11, in high school he found himself playing bass ...