Having spent the last year working through the many burdens of celebrity, Noam Pikelny is now ready to release Universal Favorite, his new solo album … “solo” being the operative word there. As evidenced in this exclusive “making of” short, Pikelny considered a lot of collaborators before having a revelatory vision for the project….
Universal Favorite is out March 3 on Rounder Records. You can order it here.
Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer have been performing music together for years, trading blazing arpeggios between the unlikely pairing of a mandolin and upright bass.
In 2008, the duo thrilled the acoustic world with their first record, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile. But their latest release Bass & Mandolin is about to set the bluegrass and classical realms on fire.
The Bluegrass Situation recently teamed up with Mason Jar Music in beautiful Telluride, Colorado to film and record several incredible Mountain Sessions.
Thile and Meyer were gracious enough to play “Why Only One?” in a gorgeous and remote mountain valley.
For his Sitch Session at the York Manor in Los Angeles, Gregory Alan Isakov teamed up with the Ghost Orchestra to perform “Saint Valentine.” Being lucky in love is great work, if you can find it. But, for the rest of us, it’s a hard row to hoe. As Isakov tells it, “Well, I just came to talk, Saint Valentine. I never pictured you living here with the rats and the vines. Ain’t that my old heart hanging out on your lines. You’re all fucked up, Saint Valentine.”
Amen, brother. A-damn-men!
Directed and Edited by Richard Downie
Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan should just go ahead and form a band. May we suggest I’m With Her — the name of the trio’s recent successful joint tour. This morning, these monsters of modern folk released “Be My Husband,” a hand-clapping, A cappella, sexually-charged tune about domesticity (originally popularized by Nina Simone).
The corresponding video sees the three singers in a wind-swept environment — it’s powerful and it’s pretty damn good. According to TwangNation, the clip was directed by Watkins’ husband Todd Cooper, and was filmed on the deck of the A Prairie Home Companion cruise back in March. Check it out below.
It may seem odd for Nathan Bowles to sit on a Los Angeles rooftop surrounded by cacti playing “Burnt Ends Rag” on a banjo. But, doggone-it, the whole thing just works. That’s because the new vanguard of bluegrass/old-time/string band music is populated with artists unafraid to try new things in new places in order to engage new listeners. And, for Bowles, it’s working very well.
Directed and Edited by Richard Downie
McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California, is some of the most hallowed ground in L.A. County, when it comes to roots music. And it’s the perfect backdrop for Chatham County Line’s Sitch Session performance of “Siren Song.” Dressed in Western weat suits and surrounded by guitars, the quartet gathers around a mic to work their bluegrass string band magic.
Directed and Edited by Richard Downie
Singer/songwriter Steve Gunn fully stakes his claim as part of the “Cosmic Americana” movement in this quietly (inter)stellar Sitch Session performance of “Full Moon Tide” from his 2016 release, Eyes on the Lines. Accompanied by Jim Elkington, Gunn took some time in downtown Los Angeles, California, to remind us why we are over the moon about him. “Word on the street is always why,” he sings. “Hang around and steal your time. Outlaw thoughts and a winded sigh. Age-old cry of a worn-out child.” Out of this world!
Directed and edited by Richard Downie
It’s been well over a year since the eponymous Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats album was released. In the time since we first spoke to him about the record, Rateliff and company have blown the roof off pretty much every festival and late-night talk show in the country with their high-energy Southern soul. For their Sitch Session recorded at the House of Blues in Houston, Texas, the band turned it all down and performed an acoustic version of “Wasting Time,” a slow, quiet burners that evokes more Cat Stevens than Sam Cooke.
Shot and edited by Dinolion
Conor Oberst has long been an important voice in American roots music, and his Sitch Session performance of “A Little Uncanny” is perfectly timed for these imperfect times. In it, he pages through historical moments to consider how he/we arrived right here, right now: “You know old Ronnie Reagan, he was a shoe salesman’s son. He got himself in the movies. He impressed everyone. He thought trial by fire was America’s fate. He made a joke of the poor people and that made him a saint.”
On her latest album, Undercurrent, Sarah Jarosz goes deeper and darker than she ever has before. The result is utterly captivating. And nowhere is it better captured than in the lead track, “House of Mercy,” which Jarosz performed for the BGS on a rooftop in Los Angeles, California. You’d be forgiven for thinking she’s the second coming of Gillian Welch, especially on this tune. “Underneath that shirt you’re wearing, strained muscles and a heart of stone, leather costume like a wild chameleon,” she sings before cutting right to the bone, “You make me want to be alone.”
Directed and Edited by Richard Downie
