Swap a CD: 15 Recently Posted CDs in Bluegrass

Cathy Fink Marcy Marxer - Changing Channels -- Songs for TV & Media Smart Kids

Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer — 2013-05-21T23:37:10-05:00

A collection of songs that help to nurture media-smart kids. Genre: Childrens Media Format: Compact Disk Rating: Release Date: 10-MAR-1998

Cathy Fink Marcy Marxer - Nobody Else Like Me

Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer — 2013-05-21T23:36:23-05:00

No Description Available. Genre: Childrens Media Format: Compact Disk Rating: Release Date: 5-MAY-1998

Various Artists - 20 Bluegrass Originals: Hymns

Various Artists — 2013-05-20T15:10:00-05:00

Various Artists - Hills of Home: 25 Years of Folk Music

Various Artists — 2013-05-20T10:31:16-05:00

Released in 1995 to commemorate Rounder Records' 25 years in business, Hills of Home is a terrific investment for anyone interested in exploring the label's myriad folk offerings. (Blues fans would be well-advised to check out Deep Blue, Hills's silver-anniversary blues twin.) Bargain-priced and boasting a wide range, this two-disc overview is elevated over standard label anthologies by superior sequencing and worthwhile liner notes. The Massachusetts-based imprint has been a stronghold for developing troubadours and stalwart mountain musicians as well as an outlet for classic reissue material. Indeed, everyone from instrumental hotshot Mark O'Connor to Woody Guthrie to acid folkies the Holy Modal Rounders to hill harmonizers the Louvin Brothers are represented here. --Steven Stolder

Jazz Mandolin Project - Xenoblast

Jazz Mandolin Project — 2013-05-19T22:38:43-05:00

This oddball power trio's third album is also their major-label debut. It blasts into jazz consciousness with a jungle-meets-fusion title track that sounds like Flatt & Scruggs jamming with Phish. Xenoblast flies high from the get-go, but you can tell JMP are just warming up. With Jamie Masefield on mandolin and mandola, Chris Dahlgren on bass, and Ari Hoenig on drums, JMP incorporates dazzlingly unusual melodic fare with hardy improvisations that gallivant with all the promise of mad youth on a swinging bender. They sail through subtle hard bop in "Double Agent," do a country-reggae march on "The Milliken Way," caress Celtic funk with "Dromedary," romp through the American heartland in "Shaker Hill," and pay tribute to Stravinsky with the complex arrangement of "Igor." JMP's cleverness sometimes mires their rambunctious improvs, and band loses the plot while building mindless climaxes. Xenoblast is feast and famine, a blend of innovative ideas and musicianship occasionally sabotaged by JMP's enthusiasm and whirlpool of ideas. --Ken Micallef

Bellamy Brothers - Over the Line

Bellamy Brothers — 2013-05-19T17:09:56-05:00

New Grass Revival - New Grass Revival

New Grass Revival — 2013-05-18T22:02:52-05:00

John McEuen - String Wizards

John McEuen — 2013-05-16T12:34:15-05:00

Mark OConnor - Mark O'Connor: The Fiddle Concerto

Mark O'Connor — 2013-05-13T22:36:59-05:00

Duhks - Duhks

Duhks — 2013-05-13T21:27:52-05:00

Celtic fiddles, Irish reels, old-time banjo, gospel vocals, and Latin percussion forge a common spirit within the uncommonly vibrant fusion of the Duhks (pronounced "ducks"). The young band from Winnipeg casts a wide net over traditional influences, breathing fresh life into the age-old balladry of "The Wagoner's Lad," generating a dynamic tension between the soulful depth of Jessica Havey's vocals and Tania Elizabeth's fiddle on a pair of spiritual standards ("Death Came a-Knockin'" and "True Religion"), and keeping the dance floor jumping with their sprightly instrumental medleys. Though the Canadian quintet doesn't feature much original material, they extend their interpretive reach to contemporary songs as well, with the desperate edge of Ruth Ungar's "Four Blue Walls" providing a bracing change of mood, while the bittersweet rendition of Paul Brady's "You and I" (with the songwriter on harmony vocals) carries the musical interplay beyond the traditional realm. (Their attempt at fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" represents a rare misstep, lacking both the droll humor and the dark fatalism of the original.) Banjo iconoclast BÉla Fleck coproduced the album, championing the Duhks as fellow trailblazers who use traditional elements to create a sound all their own. --Don McLeese

Mark OConnor - Elysian Forest

Mark O'Connor — 2013-05-11T13:53:24-05:00

Sweethearts of the Rodeo - Rodeo Waltz

Sweethearts of the Rodeo — 2013-05-11T13:53:24-05:00

For most folks in Nashville, the fall from a mega-company like Columbia Records to a small outfit like Sugar Hill would be a tragic blow, but it may be the best thing that ever happened to the Sweethearts of the Rodeo. On their first album for Sugar Hill, Rodeo Waltz, Janis Gill and Kristine Arnold (who grew up in Southern California as the Oliver sisters) have traded in the electrified country-pop sound of their CBS albums for acoustic country-bluegrass arrangements, which suit them far better. The country-folk approach really clicks for the Sweethearts of the Rodeo, perhaps because their voices and sensibilities are so intimate and delicate to begin with. The wooden echo of the picking by mandolinist Sam Bush, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and others has a gentle quality that fits the sisterly harmonies just right. --Geoffrey Himes

King Wilkie - Low Country Suite

King Wilkie — 2013-05-11T12:16:06-05:00

Even as they were named 2004's Emerging Artist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, the sound of King Wilkie was extending outward in directions that could no longer be comfortably contained under the bluegrass banner. The band spent the next two years touring non-stop, building a die-hard following and honing an idiosyncratic new sound. The result is the evocative, harrowing Low Country Suite - a dramatic push into uncharted sonic terrain. Produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Dixie Chicks, Wilco), Low Country Suite draws on the pioneering spirit of Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds, Gram Parsons' solo LPs, and "Country Honk" Stones, while the album's gentler songs are equally informed by the stark, confessional folk of Nico, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen. Haunting yet strangely uplifting, Low Country Suite is the captivating sound of a band willing to leave precedent behind to create intoxicating new music from the jagged remains of yesterday.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - More Great Dirt: The Best Of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Vol.2

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — 2013-05-10T20:49:54-05:00

Country Picks Classic Rock - Country Picks Classic Rock

Country Picks Classic Rock — 2013-05-09T19:19:55-05:00