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

On Friday, May 24th, 2019 a special wedding took place – which was the kickoff to the Chantilly Farm Bluegrass & BBQ Festival held on Memorial Day weekend. It’s truly a “bluegrass love story.” In 2018, two long-time supporters of the festival, Grace Butler and Jamie Hart, shared one of the most special moments of their lives with festival fans ...

“An unspoken tradition is not a written law. It’s a deep understanding shared between people, rooted in the past, and grown by human connection and emotion. One forms through experience and creates a way to pay homage to what’s come before, while allowing for forward motion,” reads the opening lines to a press release from Western North Carolina’s bluegrass band, ...

Jim and Lynna Woolsey from Southern Indiana have been playing music together for over 30 years, but it took a 2014 project for Jim to finally convince Lynna to record a CD with him. Jim, the songwriter, had been writing music for a long time but it was always a life long dream to actually record a CD of his ...

Kristi Stanley might have married into “Bluegrass royalty” but that certainly doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a voice and style all her own. Kristi is married to Ralph Stanley II, son of bluegrass pioneer Ralph Stanley. Ralph has recently taken over his father’s band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, and leadership of the annual home town festival, Hills Of Home, which ...

Reine Johansson started playing guitar when he was 11 years old. As he grew, up he became involved in various bands playing various genres of music including hard rock and blues through his mid-20s. He quit the music business for a while to become an actor and do musical theater. A few years ago he picked up his guitar again ...

Violinist Yale Strom is Professor and Artist-in-Residence in the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University, and is considered one of the world’s leading ethnographer-artists of Klezmer and Romani music and history. His research and findings were instrumental in forming the repertoire in 1981 for his klezmer band, Hot Pstromi. Strom has composed original music for theater, film and ...

Leif Karlstrom and Adam Roszkiewicz, two members of the award-winning progressive roots grass band Front Country, combine to explore a duo side project known as Small Town Therapy. The two friends and musicians have created a “genre-bending music” that blends acoustic jazz and classical-influenced original compositions into a new adventure in string music. Their new 13 track record, Dreams and Circumstances, is ...

Scott Slay grew up in a musical family on the gulf coast of Florida. It was a performance by Sam Bush, then with the New Grass Revival, at a small festival that grabbed six year old Slay’s attention. “My dad said that after the show I looked up at him and said, ‘I want a little guitar’ referencing Sam’s mandolin,” ...

Ashley Beck, a.k.a, Den of Ashes, comes from a deep tradition in music as the grandson of 1930’s to 50’s era Country & Western entertainers, John and “Texas Peggy” Clemens, know as the The Wyoming Ramblers. They toured and shared friendships with The Carter Family, Tex Ritter, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. As the musical landscape ever evolves, we see a new emergence of the Western music ...

We are believers in live music and are cheerleaders for the venues in which live music is taught and performed. And we believe that local encouragement of live musical engagement is vitally important. We recently began seeing posts on our social media outlets regarding activities at a music school and performance venue in nearby Charlottesville, VA named The Front Porch. ...