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Five Questions: Brooke Annibale
Though singer/songwriter Brooke Annibale hails from Pittsburgh, she did a tour of duty in Nashville before returning home last year. Those contrasting environs are both present in her work. Indeed, she\’s both a little bit country and a little bit rock \’n\’ roll, to borrow the old Osmond analysis. Her new album, The Simple Fear,…
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Five Questions: Tall Heights
Round about five years ago, Paul Wright and Tim Harrington started busking on the streets of Boston playing cello and guitar, and singing harmonies to any and all who would listen. Since then, they\’ve become Tall Heights, evolving their sound as they logged the miles. Their new release — Holding On, Holding Out — is…
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From Memphis to Metal: Lucero Covers a Lot of Ground
Lucero is one of those bands that has been around so long, pretty much everyone\’s been a fan at one point or another. And, if not, the new album might just change that. With its acoustic underpinnings, All a Man Should Do is the country-rock outfit\’s most mellow offering to date … though it still…
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Squared Roots: Rhiannon Giddens x Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton turns 70 in January. And, while that might seem impossible, it takes that span of time to accomplish all that she has over the course of her various careers as a songwriter, a singer, an actress, and a businesswoman. Rising out of the ashes of unspeakable poverty in east Tennessee, Parton blazed a…
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Jeffrey Foucault: Salt as Wolves
There\’s so much going on in singer/songwriter Jeffrey Foucault\’s voice that, if he were singing “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star,” it would feel like the existential wonderings of a road-worn, world-weary celestial traveler that it is rather than a simple kids\’ song. Instead, on his fifth album of original compositions, Foucault offers up a collection of…
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Five Questions: Gretchen Peters
Singer/songwriter Gretchen Peters has had quite a year. Following the universally praised release of Blackbirds in February, she has toured the U.S. and abroad almost non-stop — with another 2016 tour slated to mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, The Secret of Life. In the here and now, as 2015 tip-toes toward a…
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The Orphan Brigade: Soundtrack to a Ghost Story
“Everyone loves a good ghost story,” producer Neilson Hubbard says, explaining the rhymes and reasons behind his latest project, The Orphan Brigade: Soundtrack to a Ghost Story. “People seem fascinated. People want to know more about it. I think that is the same way we got hooked into the project. You get drawn in by…
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12 Great Moments from Jason Isbell at Ryman Auditorium
As a songwriter, guitar player, and band leader, Jason Isbell is so talented, it\’s almost ridiculous. He\’s also one of the nicest, most humble guys in the business. And all of those qualities came into sharp focus last night at the third of four sold-out Ryman Auditorium shows. Isbell\’s poetry and playing are graceful and…
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The Pursuit of Goodness: An Interview with Patty Griffin
“Diamonds, roses, I need Moses to cross this sea of loneliness, part this Red River of pain.” Those were the pleading and plaintive first words that most of us heard from singer/songwriter Patty Griffin\’s debut album, Living with Ghosts. It was a sparse and heartbreaking introduction to an artist who has gone on to become…
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You Can Go Home Again: An Interview with Natalie Hemby
Five years ago, award-winning country songwriter Natalie Hemby — whose had hits by Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Blake Shelton, and others — embarked on an entirely different mission: to make a documentary about her grandfather\’s hometown of Puxico, Missouri. So she, along with Ryan Silver and Scott Murphy, drove over from Nashville to capture the small town\’s…