The November issue of The Bluegrass Special now in Cyberspace.
This month Rosanne Cash, Patty Loveless and Maria Muldaur talk at length about their new albums. Reviews this month include a Gospel Set pairing of the Issac’s – Naturally, and the Gaither Vocal Band’s – Reunited.
Other articles in this month’s issue include a main feature on the desperate situation in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, where mountaintop removal coal mining is destroying the Appalachian Mountain range, the culture of Appalachia, and endangering the lives of people in the valley.
America adores its Adirondacks and reveres the Rockies, while the Appalachian Mountains – with their impoverished and alienated population – are dismantled by coal moguls who dominate state politics and have little to prevent them from blasting the physical landscape to smithereens - Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Album reviews include:
- Sam Bush – Circles Around Me
- Emmitt-Nershi Band – New Country Blues
- Ricky Skaggs – Songs My Dad Loved
- Ralph Stanley – Can’t You Hear The Mountains Calling
- Yonder Mountain String Band – The Show
Visit the Bluegrass Special Website
This month Bluegrass Special marks the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, alongside the other signal events of 1969.
Contributing Editor Billy Altman, who attended Woodstock, looks back on that memorable decade-ending summer when the world was first changed by the sight of a man walking on the moon a month before half a million young people descended on a farm in Bethel, NY, for three days of peace, love & music, as the posters proclaimed.
Bluegrass Special’s cover subject this month is also celebrating an anniversary. Bluegrass great Doyle Lawson marks his 30th year as a solo recording artist this year. In The Bluegrass Special.com interview, Lawson discusses his powerful new album Lonely Street, his early inspirations as an artist, and the work ethic he gained from his farmer father that he’s put into practical application in sustaining one of the most productive careers in bluegrass history.
This month’s reviews include:
- Mary Flower – Bridges
- Alecia Nugent – Hillbilly Goddess
- Chris Pandolfi – Looking Glass
- Kacey Jones – Donald Trump’s Hair
- Bill Noonan – The Man That I Can’t Be
- Daryl Singletary – Rockin’ In the Country
- Russel Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out
Bluegrass Special – August 2009
The July edition of Bluegrass Special is now available on the web.
What more could an ostensibly bluegrass publication ask than to have on its cover the queen of bluegrass, Rhonda Vincent? Well, we got her, via cell phone as she was driving from St. Louis to Nashville. And just as the innovation of new modes of communication enabled our interview-on-the-run, so has Ms. Vincent embraced a host of new technologies herself, everything from webcasting her recording sessions to online chats with fans visiting her website to sequencing her album via iTunes. But when it came to recording her wonderful new album, Destination Life, Rhonda went back to the basics of recording live in the studio with a bare minimum of overdubs, as a way to break in two impressive new members of her band the Rage, banjo master Aaron McDaris and guitar phenom Ben Helson. In our cover story, Ms. Vincent discusses all of these topics and more as she rolls down the highway. We were delighted to be invited along for the ride, in a manner of speaking. David McGee – Bluegrass Special.
The June 2009 issue of Bluegrass Special is now available online at The Bluegrass Special.com
This months features an interview with Michael Martin Murphy in which he discusses his long-time commitment to the American farmer and his love of the land.
The June issue also features reviews of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver’s new CD Lonely Street and the Red Stick Ramblers CD My Suitcase Is Always Packed.
Alison Brown – Compass Records Founder
Bluegrass Special announces the release of their May 2009 edition. This month features Alison Brown, the banjo virtuoso and founder of Compass Records.
Alison is the first woman, and one of only two ever, to win the IBMA’s Banjo Player of the Year Award. This is a special occasion for Brown and Compass Records, as the label marks its 15th year of adventurous, genre-bending musical offerings that take roots music to another level entirely.
Visit – Bluegrass Special May 2009.
The BluegrassSpecial.com announces its first first anniversary.
This month’s edition features Dailey and Vincent one of bluegrass’s latest and hotest property. Other features this months include Raul Malo, Mark O’Connor, Mickey Clark, and Mickey Raphael on Willie Nelson.
Bluegrass Special also festurs reviews of:
- DVD: Ron Block – A Fresh Look at Bluegrass Banjo
- Dailey and Vincent – Brothers From Different Mothers
- Bobby Osborne – Bluegrass and Beyond
We are humbled by the support we’ve received from publicists and others in the music business; we are humbled by the kind words from artists we have profiled in these pages; we are humbled by readership numbers we could not have imagined in our most fevered dreams back then. Thanks to one and all for believing in what we’re doing and for seeking us out – David McGee, TheBluegrassSpecial.com.
See the online publication TheBluegrassSpecial.com
David McGee and his team at Bluegrass Special that this months e-mag is now available.
This month’s Reviews include: Fontaine Brown – Tales From the Fence Line; Mickey Clark – Winding Highways; Pam Gadd – Benefit Of Doubt; Megan Munroe – One More Broken String; Michael Martin Murphey – Buckaroo Blue Grass; Darryl Rhoades – Weapons Of Mass Deception; April Verch – Steal the Blue; Randy Weeks – Going My Way.
Next Month is Bluegrass Special’s 1st Anniversay and the issue will feature an exclusive cover story with the hottest bluegrass band in the land, Dailey and Vincent, telling all the deep, dark secrets about their powerful new album, Brothers From Different Mothers.
See The Bluegrass Special Now online
The February edition of the BluegrassSpecial.com is available from their website.
News this month sees a new contributing editor Christopher Hill’s whose writing has appeared in Spin Magazine, the Los Angeles and Chicago Readers, Chicago Magazine, Summit: The Mountain Journal, and other publications.
Chris was also a contributing editor for four years at Record Magazine. His work has been anthologized in the Rolling Stone Record Review. He has been an award-winning video producer, an editor, and a communications director for a large non-profit organization. His writing has received the Episcopal Communicators and the Associated Church Press awards. His book, Holidays and Holy Nights, was published by Quest Books in 2005.
…We also welcome a new artist to our cover: Colorado-based singer-songwriter Gabrielle Louise, whose second album, Cigarettes for Sentiments, was produced by the estimable bluegrass veteran Gene Libbea, whom we heard from this past October in our Bearfoot cover story, the Alaska bluegrassers being another stellar Libbea production. Ms. Louise is the first installment in our ‘Artists On the Verge’, 2009 series, spotlighting new artists we feel are on the verge of, well, something big.
David McGee Publisher/Editor.
Check out BluegrassSpecial.com
Recent Comments