We here at Americana Rhythm aren’t shy about our affection for Merlefest. The festival that was created 35 years ago (1988), to celebrate the life of Doc Watson’s son, Merle, after his life was tragically cut short in a farm tractor accident – It’s the festival that inspired us to create this magazine almost 20 years ago. It was the ...

Joe Ely is an American music legend when it comes to the honky-tonk / Tex-Mex flavor of Americana music. Born in Amarillo, TX in 1947, and raised in Lubbock, Joe was exposed to, and fell in love with, Texas Country music at a very early age. In 1971, along with fellow musicians Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock, they formed ...

It’s been 35 years since Doc Watson helped create a festival to honor the life if his son Merle that was tragically cut short. That first event was held on a flatbed trailer stage in 1988, then titled the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Today, MerleFest draw thousands of fans from all over the world to the foothills of the ...

Tennessee based, Americana Singer/Songwriter, Billy Hubbard, has musical roots that run back for generations. His mother was in a 40’s and 50’s band called, the Tennessee Pardners, that toured the southland with many great artists of their day. “Mom played the mandolin and guitar, and they recorded several of the old 78 speed records in their day,” Billy told us. ...

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Jeremy Parsons grew up soaking in the sounds of the Lone Star State. Always a music fan, it wasn’t until his later high school years that he discovered his ability to actually create it. Driven by his newfound passion, he taught himself to play the guitar and began to write and perform music. Over the ...

The six-piece North County Band, featuring acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle, lap steel, Dobro, bass, drums, and three vocalists, was formed in 2020 in Connecticut and released their debut EP, Connecticut, in October 2022. Rounding out the band’s lineup are: Cat Lines on fiddle and vocals, Bradley Clark on bass, Jimmy Johnston on electric and pedal steel guitars, Jona Ziac ...

Ludlow Creek is a group of five close friends and talented performers who love to create and perform music together. Leveraging their strong bond of friendship and utilizing an array of instruments (including acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and occasionally mandolin), they create genuine, heartfelt music that has been described as “modern classic rock.” Formerly known as Southbound, ...

Eddy Mann has been a full-time musician for most of his adult life, a fact for which he is grateful. “I went to business school…In my second year I decided I was going to take some time off and get ‘the music thing’ our of my blood,” Eddy remembers. “A lifetime later, here I am…I have really truly been blessed…I’ve ...

After a long introduction to music via classical piano lessons, David Arn found himself, around age 12, being drawn instead to rock music. His ear lead him further down that path. “I had enough of a background that I could easily make the transition. I remember, even in high school, I would have classmates come up…they would hear a song ...

Rock music and biomedical science are strange bedfellows, but it is the bed that John Blangero, has made for himself. One listen to Delta Tales, the soulful debut album he released in 2020 under his aflter-ego, Sun King Rising, will make the oddness of that pairing seem almost normal. The intermingling of his music and his work as a genetic ...