News/Thoughts

Americana Music Profiles

400 Songs And Counting

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, ...

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Living The Life Of Music

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 ...

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Nylon Strings and a World of Possibilities

Zack Walther was a child of the 80s. When given the choice of band, choir, or art in elementary school, on the advice of his best friend at the time, they chose choir. “I was in it from then on,” he said. Zack grew up singing in the school choir and learning to play piano by ear on his brother’s ...

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Dreaming Of A Bluegrass Band

LaTresa Smith was born into a musical family. Her father, a Christian minister, and his minister brothers, all from Alabama, toured and performed southern Gospel music in their band, The Hester Brothers. LaTresa recalled as a young girl listening to bluegrass music on Saturday nights in an old store front in Mississippi and dreaming of having a bluegrass band of ...

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Jay Elle

Guitarist Jay Elle is a singer and a songwriter. And while he writes a lot of pop style songs, and is often billed as pop singer/songwriter, he says his songs are a bit on the mellow side these days. Jay suggests that you could classify him as more of an urban-folk musician. “I play a nylon string Ovation guitar which ...

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Doyle Live From Prague

Doyle Lawson is 74, but age sure hasn’t stopped him from continuing his legacy of recording and promoting traditional bluegrass music. Not only does he keep a rigorous tour schedule, he records his own music, as well as produces other top acoustic artists. He has numerous industry awards as well as two Grammy nominations to his credit, and they are ...

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Ashville’s Zoe & Cloyd

Natalya Zoe Weinstein is a multi-instrumentalist and an award-winning songwriter. Together with vocalist, John Cloyd Miller, they make up the string duo of Zoe & Cloyd. Founding members of the trio Red June, the pair have been touring as a duo since 2015. They met in Ashville, NC hanging around the local music scene there in 2005. Red June lasted ...

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King Of Birds

Scottish brothers Charlie and Stirling Gorman live in a little village near Glasgow. As kids, they played in various bands and dreamed of one day making it big and finding a way out and into the big music world as stars. Then, one day in 1994 it happened. Their band, Murmur, caught the attention of a record executive. The next ...

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Hall Of Fame Bobby Messano

When Bobby Messano was 14, he was already playing guitar in clubs with guys that were in their 20s. “I wanted to be Eric Clapton and I wanted to play the Philmore East,” he recalled. “I never got to do either,” he laughed. But Bobby has been able to accomplish a few things in his legendary career as a guitarist. ...

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Jazz, Soul, Blues, and Funk

Jim Stephen’s Yellow River album release is his 4th in 36 months on Ropeadope Records. It’s a 10 song “tour-de-force” featuring music rooted deep in Jazz, Soul, Blues, and Funk. It was recorded mostly in two days at the legendary Esplanade Studios in New Orleans where Jim calls home. Jim got a late start in music, not really playing or ...

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