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1 week ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
I guess you could call Austin musicians Taylor Turner and Everett Wren serial band members. Taylor has been in more bands than he can remember; 15 during his college years alone. In addition to his solo projects, Wren has played with the Arkansas Youth Orchestra and formed groups Wagon, Lost & Nameless, and Chalkboard Poets. After a call from fellow musician Sol Chase to work a bluegrass gig with David Rabinowicz and him, the event so energized the 4 of them they started Big Love Car Wash.
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1 week ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
I guess you could call Austin musicians Taylor Turner and Everett Wren serial band members. Taylor has been in more bands than he can remember; 15 during his college years alone. In addition to his solo projects, Wren has played with the Arkansas Youth Orchestra and formed groups Wagon, Lost & Nameless, and Chalkboard Poets. […]
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1 week ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan met each other when Jarosz was still in her early teens, and the other two barely in their twenties. By 2014 they were singing together in no less a venue than Telluride’s bluegrass festival. In 2018 they released an album, See You Around, and received a collective Grammy in 2020, both under the moniker of I’m With Her.
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2 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Folk music has, I think, always had a DIY aesthetic. You strum your guitar, sing into the microphone (if available), and there you have it. Simple enough that more than a few artists have chosen to tour by bicycle. Oregon-based couple Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel have raised that quite a few notches on their new release, Time And Materials.
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2 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Folk music has, I think, always had a DIY aesthetic. You strum your guitar, sing into the microphone (if available), and there you have it. Simple enough that more than a few artists have chosen to tour by bicycle. Oregon-based couple Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel have raised that quite a few notches on their […]
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3 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
They say you can’t go home again, but that’s really about the mistaken idea nothing will have changed. What I do think is true, especially as you get older, is there’s something comforting and centering about returning to your roots for a visit. After a stint with Old Crow Medicine Show and recording with the likes of Molly Tuttle and Del McCoury, Mason Via gathered a group of killer bluegrass musician friends and headed to Floyd County, Virginia, not far from his childhood home.
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3 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Wishes do come true. Four years ago I wrote about the debut solo album from Steep Canyon Rangers’ banjoist and frequent lead singer, Graham Sharp. I finished the post expressing a hope that, as much as I like the Rangers, the record wouldn’t be his last solo effort. Well, just out is another release from Sharp, called How Did We Do It. Whereas he used that first record to push into country music territory, he and his banjo are back in full bluegrass regalia here.
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3 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Wishes do come true. Four years ago I wrote about the debut solo album from Steep Canyon Rangers’ banjoist and frequent lead singer, Graham Sharp. I finished the post expressing a hope that, as much as I like the Rangers, the record wouldn’t be his last solo effort. Well, just out is another release from […]
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4 weeks ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in the case of Houstonian Marina Rocks; when in Texas, be a Texan. The Austin-born guitarist/singer/songwriter has long embraced the musical styles she heard around her, and in the process developed a unique sound that nonetheless ties her to the Lone Star State. So it was with a little bit of surprise I realized she’s pushing some geographic boundaries on her new album, S.O.S. Texas.
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1 month ago | 
twangville.com | Shawn Underwood
Back in the 60’s Nashville country music was feeling the pressure from honky-tonk hits coming out of Bakersfield, and from the blues-rock edge the Brits were putting on pop. So the A-list producers decided to replace the fiddle and steel guitar with orchestra strings and the nasally vocals with polished choruses. The resultant sound became the standard for country music for over a decade.
