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Family Ties

Bluegrass newcomers FLATT LONESOME are capturing the traditional world's attention with their debut album. A flawless start it's not, but the band is positioning itself for a long, fruitful run.
by David McGee
 

 
 
hsoc johnpaul cover

Channeling Beatles, In Rarified Air

In their first new CD since 2012, the HOT CLUB OF SAN FRANCISCO reimagines tunes by Lennon-McCartney and George Harrison in the gypsy jazz style of DJANGO REINHARDT.
by David McGee
 

 

 
al basile midcentury featured

The Philosopher Ascendant

AL BASILE brings his voice, his cornet and his songwriting skills to bear most impressively on a new album that speaks to respect for those who came before even as it addresses contemporary issues.
by David McGee
 

 
 
mark maggie spotlight small

It Starts With The Heart

Another triumph for MARK O'CONNOR, but this time he's sharing the spotlight with his ferociously talented new bride, MAGGIE O'CONNOR, on DUO.
by David McGee
 

 

 
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Life And Life Only

A little bit Montgomery Gentry, a little bit Trace Adkins, but ultimately only themselves, the fellows who comprise the hard hitting country band LiveWire come on strong in their debut album, Livin'.
by David McGee
 

 
 
benedictines caroling

You Have Come to The World. I Pour Out Praise for You.

BENEDICTINES OF MARY, QUEEN OF APOSTLES have created their third classic Christmas album in CAROLING AT EPHESUS. All proceeds go the order's building projects.
by David McGee
 

 

 
lee boys live

‘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
 

 
 
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Off the Beaten Path, As Usual

Exploring America’s blue highways and coming back with songs that have and will endure, some ever-present in our collective memory, some orphaned by time but always primed for adoption by loving practitioners such as these.
by David McGee
 

 

 
Tinsley Elllis Naked Truth

In Heavy Rotation: Really the Blues

A quintet of impressive new blues albums from seasoned vets.
by David McGee
 

 
 
 

An Empress On the Forgotten Paths of Russian Song

Venturing down forgotten paths of Russian song on her new album, ST PETERSBURG, Empress of Song CECILIA BARTOLI offers a virtuoso performance of the long-hidden body of music composed for the Romanov court.
by David McGee
 

 

 
melody gardot sunset

Love Is a Many-Splintered Thing

Herein a dozen smokey, sensuous and often ambivalent discourses on love and passion delivered with the breathy tenderness and sublime understatement of someone defining love not as a many-splendored thing, but rather as a many-...
by David McGee
 

 
 
canadian brass christmastime featured

Big Brass Ones for Christmas

On its fifth holiday album, CHRISTMASTIME IS HERE, CANADIAN BRASS honors the music of animated Yule favorites and the arrangements of LUTHER HENDERSON and BRANDON RIDENOUR.
by David McGee