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

On Labor Day weekend, in 1971, Carlton Haney produced a Bluegrass festival at Camp Springs, NC. This festival featured notable performers such as Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Chubby Wise, The Osborne Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Mac Wiseman, J.D. Crowe, The Lilly Brothers, Tex Logan, Don Stover, and The Country Gentlemen. Remember that it was the year 1971 so many of the ...

It was an incapacitating car accident in his late teens that moved Perth, Western Australian artist Andy Michaels to pick up a guitar. The result was a fusion of eclectic tastes and melodic sounds featuring hints of folk, country, Americana and contemporary pop. His latest project, Incendiary Heart, a 14-track, pop leaning mixture, with nostalgic influences from the 70s and ...

The River Ratz, a four-piece Acoustic Americana Band hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, says they were born in Bluegrass, and bred in Rock ‘n Roll. With deep roots in Bluegrass music, they perform a wide variety of musical styles which includes not only bluegrass music, but also country, rock, Cajun, Irish, blues and folk. Husband and wife, Steve and Margie ...

Christine Lavin called Mara Levine, “one of the best singers of her generation,” and David Amram called the international touring artist and jewelry designer a “Golden Voice.” Mara considers herself to be a song interpreter, and is considered by many to be an exceptional song-finder. Rather than penning original songs, Mara picks songs that she loves, but invisions them sounding ...

Born and raised in Lebanon OH, Larry Sparks is one of the few early generation bluegrass pioneers still performing today. Although Larry played in country and rock music bands in high school, in 1964 his bluegrass career began when he joined the Stanley Brothers on the recommendation of aquaintence Moon Mullins. “Carter Stanley is the one that got me with ...

Maggie and Abigail Vogts hail from southeastern Kansas (Erie) where they have been sibling musicians ever since they took piano lessons together as kids; eventually performing together at local churches and other small venues as part of the group Saving Grace from 2000 to 2005. “When we were in Saving Grace, I was terrified of performing for people,” Maggie shared. ...

Some dreams fly like a rocket! My husband, Rick Stanley and I sold our home we had for many years in Nashville proper and bought eight acres and a brick rancher in Lebanon, Tennessee a few years ago. I remember gazing out over the fields and wondering what in the world we would do with all that land. I surely ...

Is your musical bucket list like ours here at the magazine? Our bucket is just too full of wonderful festivals and other musical events and not full enough of time to fit them all in. Such was the case recently when a press release hit our in-box with details about the release of a documentary film about the Galax Old ...

After years of working with and for other artists, Australian musician Rod McCormack decided it was finally time to release a project of his own. His debut CD, Fingerprints, is schedule to be released September 20th. Rod got to check an item off his bucket list recently by performing an album release show at the famed Station Inn in Nashville, ...

Dewey and Leslie Brown are truly living the life of music. Dewey, a fiddler, played in Dr. Ralph Stanley’s band as a Clinch Mountain Boy for 12 years, until Ralph’s death in 2016. Dewey started playing in high school with the band Blue Ridge. In 1999 Dewey won first place at the Old Time Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, VA. He ...