With the Covid-19 pandemic decimating entertainment venues around the country, artists like Smither are doing everything they can to help these vital music emporiums survive.
Folk
Indie Folk/Rock EP Review: Kate Bollinger — Music for Our Melancholy Moment
Partially completed before the pandemic hit and assembled during quarantine, the EP feels uniquely suited to ease our collective glumness.
Concert Review: The Newport Folk Festival 2020 — Virtual Mission Accomplished
Yes, Newport Folk’s all about the music, but there’s also a collaborative heart at work — and virtual programming spurred donations for the non-profit’s mission to endure.
Folk Music Review: Dan Reeder — Weighing Consequences and Accepting Defeat… “Just Feels Sorta Natural”
Uplifting tunes for the aspiring curmudgeon you didn’t know you’d already become
Concert Review: Marcia Ball and Sonny Landreth at ONCE — Plenty Rousing
At 70, Marcia Ball is a non-stop pro, particularly at pacing. Early barn burners gave way to the slow blues of “Just Kiss Me.”
Music Feature: Billy Strings — A Breakout Year
Billy Strings is deservedly catching fire with a unique blend of mind-snapping talent as a guitarist, deep appreciation for tradition, appetite for improvisation and experimentation, and ever-improving songwriting.
Concert Preview: Judy Collins Heats Up Some “Winter Stories”
“People love a story, they always have, and always will, and stories are an essential ingredient in this folk music revival, which started sometime in the early ’50s.”
Music Feature: Childsplay — The Last Waltz
Childsplay, the celebrated flash-band of fiddlers who have come together around the holidays for more than 30 years, is calling it quits.
Classical CD Review: “Free America!, Early Songs of Resistance and Rebellion” — Fight the Power!
Enjoy Boston Camerata’s Free America! for its high spirits and its crafty, delicious way of making the iconoclasm of the past come alive.
Music Commentary: Ken Burns’ “Country Music” — Superb Cinematic Storytelling
Country Music digs into the rich, deep dirt of a music with a complicated past, a hybrid genre soaked in soulful suffering, twangy glory, and times both high and tough.