Even with seven International Bluegrass Music Awards for Bass Player of the Year, it’s not all about the bass for Missy Raines. After gigging around, the talented lead singer stepped up to the mic in 2008 to front The New Hip quartet featuring mandolin, guitars, bass, drums and percussion, and the accolades keep coming. Deep […]
Even with seven International Bluegrass Music Awards for Bass Player of the Year, it’s not all about the bass for Missy Raines. After gigging around, the talented lead singer stepped up to the mic in 2008 to front The New Hip quartet featuring mandolin, guitars, bass, drums and percussion, and the accolades keep coming. Deep […]
Named after a town in Maine, folk quintet Parsonsfield formed by happenstance at the University of Connecticut around 2009. “I was beginning college and I really wanted to meet some people that had an interest in old songs like I did,” says member Chris Freeman. “I was playing guitar and discovering music from all eras […]
“St. Patrick’s Day is much bigger in America than it is in Ireland,” say the members of Lúnasa, an Irish supergroup who take the stage on Wednesday, for what guitarist Ed Boyd calls “a good night’s entertainment.” The group’s 20th anniversary tour is filled with stories and music, contemporary and traditional, in perfect preparation for the stateside honoring of […]
In the early days of her career, Neko Case sounded like a new voice in the vintage style of country music, with 1997’s The Virginian earning her comparisons to Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. What came next was an album-by-album development of her unique vocals and compelling songwriting. Twenty years later, she’s released the box […]
Jordan Tice’s journey to becoming a force on the bluegrass scene started with classical guitar, jazz and rock ’n’ roll, then expanded into a variety of projects that found him keeping musical company with members of Crooked Still, Punch Brothers, Dave Rawlings Machine and Canadian folk act The Duhks. He was even tapped by banjo-playing […]
The Front Porch’s Emily Morrison wants artists of all backgrounds to find peace at the roots music school she founded in 2015. With help from friends, Morrison began the school in a back room in her home and soon moved into a space at Mountaintop Montessori. Last June the nonprofit moved into the old Michie […]
Not only does Will Overman charm the crowd with his arsenal of lyrically enticing folk rockers, the lead singer can’t resist stepping off the stage and into the audience to groove among his fans. Following up on the album Will Overman Band, “a love letter to the Commonwealth of Virginia” that was released in June, the […]
Coming up as a teenage country singer, Miranda Lambert was disenchanted by the pop music style that Nashville starmakers tried to push on her. Instead, Lambert blazed her own groove down the well-worn path of traditional country music and defined herself with hits such as “Gunpowder and Lead,” “The House That Built Me” and “Little […]
Ben Hardesty is roaming Charlottesville. The frontman of indie folk- pop act The Last Bison moved to C’ville last August. Since then, the musicians that once comprised the band in its former home base of Chesapeake have scattered. Only six months on the new terrain, Hardesty is still trying to discover where he can get […]
The 2013 documentary The Punk Singer chronicles the rise of the riot grrrl movement in the ’90s and focuses on the revolution’s central figure, Kathleen Hanna. During a highlight of the film, Hanna discusses how she and her bandmates decided to form Bikini Kill even though none of them could really play an instrument. For […]