Displaying items by tag: acoustic

Bryan Sutton is the most accomplished and awarded acoustic guitarist of his generation, an innovator who bridges the bluegrass flatpicking traditions of the 20th century with the dynamic roots music scene of the 21st. His rise from buzzed-about young sideman to first-call Nashville session musician to membership in one of history’s greatest bluegrass bands has been grounded in quiet professionalism and ever-expanding musicianship.

Sutton is a Grammy Award winner and a nine-time International Bluegrass Music Association Guitar Player of the Year. But these are only the most visible signs of Sutton’s accomplishments. He inherited and internalized a technically demanding instrumental style and become for young musicians of today the same kind of model and hero that Tony Rice and Clarence White were for him. And supplementing his instrumental work, he’s now a band leader, record producer, mentor, educator and leader in online music instruction.

At only 23 years of age, Oklahoma native Parker Millsap is quickly making a name for himself with his captivating live performances, soulful sound, and character-driven narratives. Regardless of his age, Parker's enthralling lyrics engrossing storytelling have garnered him attention from the likes of CONAN, and invitation to play with Elton John at the Apple Music Festival. During 2016 alone, a banner year for Parker, he was featured on Austin City Limits and recieved an Americana Music Association nomination for Album of the Year. 

Parker's most recent release, The Very Last Day, has received praise from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, LA Times, Austin Chronicle and Rolling Stone to name a few.

“I like to set goals for myself that are impossible to reach,” he explains. “That way, I always have something to aim for, a better song, different characters, new stories. I just want to pay the bills and feed my dog, and maybe buy a new guitar every now and then. That’s all I need. I don’t want to be Elvis Presley, but I wouldn’t complain if a million girls screamed for me, either. Just don’t tell my girlfriend that.”  Parker Millsap is ready to share his Oklahoma roots with the rest of the country, and, hopefully, the world.

“To me, music is food and you need a variety to stay healthy and strong,” - Luther Dickinson on his prolific musical output, which, at last count, includes three new, somewhat divergent roots albums planned for 2015.

When Luther Dickinson was growing up in rural Mississippi — just 40 miles south of Memphis, but deep in the hill country — his favorite band was Black Flag, the caustic L.A. punk band that defined the hardcore movement in the 1980s. That may surprise listeners who have been following his career as a folk-blues-rock innovator. With his brother Cody, Luther is a charter member of the North Mississippi Allstars and has recorded with an amazing array of musicians over the years: Beck, Patty Griffin, Mavis
Staples, John Hiatt, Buddy Miller, RL Burnside, Lucero, Jon Spencer, and Robert Plant. He’s also produced albums by Jim Lauderdale, Amy LaVere, and Otha Turner, whose Everybody’s Hollerin’ Goat was named one of the top 10 blues records of the ‘90s by Rolling Stone. 

"The best bluegrass-rock-country-soul-gospel-anything goes hybrid band" -The Bluegrass Situation

Mountain Heart is thrilled to announce their new partnership and an upcoming studio album, their first since 2010!

Mountain Heart Entertainment is the new official partnership created after purchasing the band from former member Barry Abernathy. Abernathy has resigned to focus on family. The group is now officially a team on and off stage. For the first time in the band's 17 year history, Mountain Heart represents a group made up of all equal partners to create and share their music with fans everywhere!

"Canada's premier neo-tradsters romp from world-beat to blues, urban-pop to old-timey, with wild-eyed invention, haunting traditionalism, and spine-rattling groove." (Scott Alarik, The Boston Globe) GRAMMY nominees and JUNO award winners, seeing The Duhks live is nothing short of a spiritual experience. A syncopated bluesy banjo number seamlessly follows a Brazilian samba; an old-time jaunt nestles comfortably next to a gospel performance. One of the most musically adventurous bands to come from the roots scene in the past decade, The Duhks return to the stage is definitely a cause for celebration.

Wayward Molly is Jani Gamble, Allison Ottley, Nicki Singleton and Mona Stevens. The three vocalists were thrown together for a one time performance in 2009, and although they come from varied musical backgrounds, they blended so well and had such a blast that they decided to give it another go.

Drawing on an eclectic mix of folk, Celtic, and whatever else they feel like, they are currently performing in local venues. Wayward Molly recently had their "coming out" concert in March 2012 to a packed house and two standing ovations while raising funds for the American Cancer Society.

Better Off With The Blues began life as an acoustic blues band with roots in Delta Blues, Country Blues, Folk Blues, Rags and Jug Band music. Our members include Lou Borgenicht (harp and vocals), Ken Critchfield (bass), Jim Poulton (guitar and vocals), and Paul Rasmussen (guitar, mandolin and vocals).

Playing music from such diverse artists as Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Blind Blake, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Mississippi Fred McDowell and more, BOWB performances feature a tour of the roots of the blues from the earliest decades of the 20th century. Add in songs by more current composers (including Delbert McClinton, Bob Dylan and members of BOWB themselves), and BOWB becomes a compendium for an entire century of blues approaches and styles.

Young in age and conception, Elephant Revival carries a fresh sense of creativity and inspiration that is felt by people of every generation. The neo-acoustic quintet is on the cutting edge of an emerging new genre that is known as 'Transcendental Folk.'