Deep Roots Magazine

Deep Roots Magazine

Roots Music and Meaningful Matters

 
 

 

And A Proud Mama She Would Be

AUTUMN IN AUGUSTA, the blues-jazz-folk combo led by the wondrous LUCY SMITH, has a winner in SONGS MY MAMA WOULD LIKE. It's Ms. Smith's tribute to the music her mother loved. Mama, Ms. Smith writes, 'had awesome taste.' We agree.
by David McGee
 

 
 

Alive, Authentic and Profoundly Human

This week's ALBUM OF THE WEEK is 'Brothers in Bamako,' a ttansAtlantic union of souls between modern day griots Habib Koité, of Mali, and the veteran New York City-born folksinger Eric Bibb. Their song is 'alive, authentic and...
by David McGee
 

 

 

Being About Disconnect, Romantic and Otherwise

As he did n his surprising 2024 debut, LANCE COWAN once again looks deep into his characters' splintered interior lives, revealing many of them to be battling dark nights of the soul.
by David McGee
 

 
 

Chronicling a Spiritual Exodus from Modern-Day Anxieties

One of the first great albums of 2019, GOSHEN, by DONALD LAWRENCE PRESENTS THE TRI-CITY SINGERS, is a concept album ranging from worship songs to topical numbers to rages against the machine--and the power of faith.
by David McGee
 

 

 

‘A Smoking-Hot Sanctified-Meets-Steel Workout’

According to gospel editor BOB MAROVICH, the LEE BOYS' new album, LIVE ON THE EAST COAST, 'doesn't blur the line between sacred and secular--it erases it altogether.'
by David McGee
 

 
 

Intimate and Finely Judged

The mystery of ORLANDO BLOOM's 17th Century consort anthems persists, but his work lives anew and in beauty in CHAINS OF GOLD by the MAGDALENA CONSORT, FRETWORK and HIS MAJESTYS SAGBUTTS and CORNETTS
by David McGee
 

 

 

Bobby Osborne: Sui Generis

Now 85, bluegrass legend BOBBY OSBORNE, with ALISON BROWN producing and superb backing musicians, has a solo triumph in the accurately titled ORIGINAL.
by David McGee
 

 
 

Existential Bluegrass

Bluegrass existentialists THE ROYS are back with THE VIEW, comprised of songs pondering the burden of memory as time marches on, along with philosophical appraisals of quotidian troubles and joys.
by David McGee