News/Thoughts

Americana Music Profiles

Juliet; Dream Girl

Although born in North Carolina, Juliet Simmons Dinallo grew up in Maine, but came of age as a musician in Boston. She now resides east of Nashville, TN, where all her life experiences influence her songwriting, singing and performance style, giving everything she does a unique expression. She was introduced to the arts and music from the beginning of her ...

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Infectious Folk

Boston, MA is home base for the Americana band, Los Goutos. Five multi-instrumentalists made up the original core of the band, three of them being singer-songwriters. Over the years the group has morphed and expanded to now include a fourth singer-songwriter (Emily Grogan), a two-piece horn section, and sometimes a fiddle. They’ve described themselves as an off-kilter and infectious concoction ...

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Guys With Guitars

Mark Wayne Glasmire was just 10 years old when his parents gave him a guitar as a Christmas present. Although now residing in Arlington, TX, Mark was born and raised in Bethlehem, PA. “I always wanted to be a rock star,” he told me. A child of the 60’s, Mark grew up listening to the singer-songwriters of the day like ...

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New Band Dripping With Talent

Super groups are inevitable in every genre’ I suppose, but it seems most exciting when a group of bluegrass guys and/gals, who all have regular gigs in some other fashion, find themselves together forming a new band. Sometimes it is on the side, and sometimes it becomes the main thing. When Jerry Salley began putting together a new bluegrass/Americana label, ...

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New Music From Alan Bibey & Grasstowne

Alan Bibey has been entertaining audiences professionally with his mandolin chops since the early 1980’s. He picked up the instrument at the of age of five, and since then, has become one of the most creative and technically gifted mandolinists in bluegrass and acoustic music today. Alan was an original member of three of bluegrass music’s more contemporary pioneering acts; ...

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Sister Sadie

An impromptu performance about six years ago at the Station Inn in Nashville, TN, led to another of bluegrass music’s exciting mash-up of musicians. The part-time super group consists of five-time IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year and Grammy Nominated, Dale Ann Bradley, along with veteran Nashville powerhouse singer, Tina Adair, fiddle player; Deanie Richardson ((who’s worked with all kinds ...

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Billy Droze Back To His Roots

Billy Droze was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, the 10th of 12 children, in 1986, but he grew up in Alabama, knowing the whole time that music was going to be his life, “as far back as I can remember,” he said. Billy said he got his start in gospel music before finding his way into a traveling bluegrass band with ...

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It’s Never Too Late

Beaver Creek, CO resident Jim Stanard grew up listening to, loving, and absorbing the music of all the greats. He grew up in an era when he could watch first hand entertainers like Tom Rush, Doc Watson, Bruce Springsteen, hanging out at the legendary Main Point Coffeehouse in Bryn Mawr, PA. He even attended Woodstock in 1969 although his perspective is less than ...

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Carrington Kay’s Folky Grass

It’s always good to get the chance to revisit with artists that we’ve featured here in previous issues. Rob and Kristen Smith are excellent examples of an act that just stays with it, stays at it, and keeps the musical fires burning as they pursue their passion for sharing their gift with whomever will listen. Rob is a graduate from Virginia ...

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Smoke Out The Window

Musician/songwriter Rick Monroe is no stranger to moving around, but he feels like it’s part of what makes his musical style unique. “I definitely come by a gypsy soul legitimately,” he told me recently. He was born in Clearwater, FL, moved to England, moved back to Kansas, then Connecticut, North Carolina, and back to Florida, then L.A., and now he ...

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