News/Thoughts

Monthly Archives: October 2022

New York’s Peter Miller

Despite growing up about an hour away from New York, Pete Miller has been drawn away from the bright lights and big city toward a rural existence and an authentic way of being a “blue collar” singer-songwriter. Bob Dylan was a big influence in high school and set him on the songwriter road early on, although he kept his creativity ...

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Volume Five

Starting as a casual jam band back in 2008, Volume Five is a Mississippi-based group that has grown into one of bluegrass music’s most distinctive and popular acts. Soulful lead vocals by fiddler Glen Harrell along with the band’s tight instrumentals and vocal harmonies have earned the group two IBMA Awards, numerous other nominations, and many accolades. Joining Glen to ...

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Inspired By BB King

Around the age of 12 or 13, Vince Vangard got his first guitar, an acoustic. “I wasn’t allowed to start with electric, so I got an acoustic,” he remembers with a chuckle. “I had to learn a few songs, my dad’s particular requests, in order to earn the electric guitar…” His father was a blues fanatic, (who named his son ...

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Arkansas’ Pam Setser

Growing up in Mountain View, Arkansas (home of the Ozark Music Center), for singer-songwriter Pam Setser, it all began with her family. “I started singing when I was 5 years old,” she recalls. “My dad was already playing some guitar; mom played some autoharp…so we started playing as a family band, The Simmons Family.” She feels blessed to have been ...

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Americana Suits Her Best

With her husband and co-writer Tommy Parham, Tia McGraff is a skilled songstress who has been making impactful and thought-provoking art for well over a decade. With nine international CD releases and multiple film and TV placements over the years, her recorded catalog is certainly a proud accomplishment, but where Tia truly shines is in her live performances. Her love ...

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It’s Just Three Or Four Chords

Lynn Crossett started playing music while he was also beginning his professional journey as a college student in Austin, Texas. The highway that he hopped on leading him to success in the legal profession always had a parallel service road toward singer-songwriterdom. He now lives in San Marcos, Texas and teaches there full time as a law professor at Texas ...

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The Goodfellers

North Carolinian Teddy Barneycastle was surrounded by music his entire life. At the age of five he was part of The Barneycastle Trio, a gospel group composed of his mother, aunt, and oldest sister. “More than one time,” Teddy remembers, “as the five-year-old with the old tape recorder with the red button…I fell asleep on the front pew of a ...

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Runs In The Family

Though she’s just in her early 20s, and still attending college, Music City native Jaelee Roberts is already familiar with—and to—the music industry. Born to veteran music professionals, she grew up backstage at the Grand Ole Opry amid rehearsals, business meetings, recording sessions, as well as countless festivals, concerts and church services. These experiences, along with her love of the ...

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Filled Up With The Stories

The heartache and grit that much bluegrass music encapsulates expresses Corrie Lynn Green’s growing up years perfectly. No wonder she was drawn to the genre early on. Stuck in severe poverty, her family moved around the Harrisonburg, Virginia area frequently when she was younger. Then she moved to a home in Elkton, Virginia, just under the shadow of the Shenandoah ...

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Marina Rocks

Marina Rocks is a native Austinite who never had any doubt that music would be her life. Her mom understood. “First she bought me a guitar that was too big for me,” Marina recalls, “and took me to a guitar teacher…he made a suggestion and she got me a 3/4-size…and away we went.” About her mother Marina adds, “…I have ...

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