Wild and crazy pickin’: Made famous through collaborations with actor/comedian/banjo player Steve Martin, the Steep Canyon Rangers’ raucous bluegrass is serious business. The band has nine albums on its own, three of which were released in the past 12 months, and two with Martin—including the 2012 Grammy-nominated Rare Bird Alert. But this is no backup act: When these pickers go to work onstage, comparisons to The Band, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Zac Brown Band get tossed around.
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Landscape photographer Karen Duncan Pape turns her lens to the page in “De-Circulated,” an exhibition of reconstructed covers of banned books on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28. “Growing up in Southwest Virginia, books were extremely important to me, as they exposed me to other worlds and broadened my perspective,” says Pape. “I […]
Black Fiddlers
Take a deep dive into the culture and legacy of African American violinists in director Eduardo Montes-Bradley’s Black Fiddlers. The 60-minute documentary shares the stories and sounds of Black men and women throughout American history, like the late old-time fiddler Joe Thompson (pictured) and 18th-century Richmond virtuoso Sy Gilliat, an enslaved man whose opera melodies […]
Maura Shawn Scanlin
Boston-based fiddler Maura Shawn Scanlin is putting her own inventive twist on traditional Celtic tunes. An award-winning musician, Scanlin incorporates classical chamber music and traditional sounds from the American South, along with Irish and Scottish fiddle playing into her fluid compositions. Scanlin is touring her new self-titled record with Conor Hearn on guitar, Adam Hendey […]
