Review- Leon Majcen: Better Days

Review- Leon Majcen: Better Days

Derek Scudder

The first thing you need to know about Leon Majcen is how to pronounce his last name because that will make it easier for you to tell others about this fascinating singer/songwriter; it’s “might-sin.” 

He was born in the Czech Republic, the son of Bosnian war refugees who moved their family to Clearwater, Florida before Leon was two years old. It was his father’s love of Outlaw country music and his record collection featuring Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan, among many others, that started young Leon on the path of the Troubadour.

Review- Tony Kamel: We're All Gonna Live

Review- Tony Kamel: We're All Gonna Live

Morgan Davis

Tony Kamel’s latest album, We’re All Gonna Live, centers around a piece of advice that his grandma shared with him - life is full of struggles. They’re inevitable and you just have to be ready to fight them with a smile on your face. Tony passes along this optimistic outlook with a collection of songs that are full of hope and reasons to celebrate during hard times. Always a compelling storyteller, Kamel wrote eight of the ten songs using family, friends, and even a stranger that he encountered on the street as the inspiration behind the characters. The narratives focus on the positive aspects of these relationships and making the most out of the hand we’re dealt. 

Premiere- Katie & The Honky Tonks: Slowdown Honey

Premiere- Katie & The Honky Tonks: Slowdown Honey

Melissa Payne

We’re thrilled to premiere “Slowdown Honey,” the latest single from Waterloo, Iowa-based band Katie and the Honky Tonks, ahead of their debut album Ain’t No Shame, set to release on June 27th. The slowest and most vulnerable track on the record, “Slowdown Honey” showcases the band’s ability to produce emotionally rich, timeless country music with a hint of their Midwestern roots.

Review- Cat Ridgeway: Sprinter

Review- Cat Ridgeway: Sprinter

John Schumacher

The heart and soul of Cat Ridgeway’s new album is tattooed on her right forearm. It’s an image of a check engine light, the dashboard indicator that there’s something wrong, maybe seriously wrong, with your vehicle’s engine. 

On Ridgeway’s arm – and on that album, Sprinter – it’s a tribute to a good friend who lost her battle with mental health and a reminder not to ignore the warning signs in yourself or others. 

That metaphor animates the title track, which kicks off the album with a blizzard of buzzing guitars before settling into a bass-led lope of a tale about a person who seems to have it together, but maybe not quite. It builds to a cathartic, anguished wail: “Were you just too proud? / Was I just too loud?” And then a regretful coda: “I wish you reached out, and I wish I had reached in.”

Review- Jason Boland & The Stragglers: The Last Kings of Babylon

Review- Jason Boland & The Stragglers: The Last Kings of Babylon

Derek Scudder

The last time Jason Boland tried to celebrate a career milestone the pandemic shut down the 20th Anniversary tour, scheduled to celebrate the release of his debut Pearl Snaps record. He took advantage of that downtime to write and record his sci-fi concept album The Light Saw Me, then released a live album recorded at the venerable Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. Now, it’s time for another landmark date in the history of the Stragglers and it arrives on March 14th via Thirty Tigers. The Last Kings of Babylon celebrates a quarter-century of Red Dirt excellence by one of the cornerstones of the genre. Jason describes the record as “a mirror, a retrospective, a reflection of everywhere we’ve been and everything we’ve learned over the last 25 years on the road.”

Review- Will Stewart: Moon Winx

Review- Will Stewart: Moon Winx

Derek Scudder

Back in the 1960s before home football games, coach Bear Bryant wanted to get his University of Alabama team away from any distractions on campus. He would load the team onto buses and take them to the Moon Winx Lodge. It was a 36-room motel in the eastern part of Tuscaloosa which happened to be one of the most modern motels in the region and located on the old main road into town. The team would enjoy a steak dinner at the on-site Lamplighter restaurant before turning in for the night. Saturdays would feature a bit of a parade as the team traveled back across town to the campus stadium with the locals lining the street to cheer on their beloved Tide.

Review- Sean McConnell: SKIN

Review- Sean McConnell: SKIN

Morgan Davis

For his latest solo album, Sean McConnell took an intimate look at his life and the world around him. The eleven songs that make up SKIN are the result of both self-reflection and careful observation. They are revealing. They are honest. And, even though they are deeply personal songs, they are relatable. 

The album will hit close to home for many of us, starting with the title track “SKIN” and the bittersweet revelation that the answers to life’s questions come from inside ourselves. Powerful lines like “there’s no peace without if there’s a war within” and “the greatest lie the devil tells is that he is someone else” are reminders that we are often our own worst enemy. 

Review- Tony Logue: Dark Horse

Review- Tony Logue: Dark Horse

Derek Scudder

“Southern Rock n Roll” is the ready answer from Tony Logue when asked what kind of music he plays. He lays it out plainly in the lyrics to “Grindstone” from his new album Dark Horse released on February 21st; “Wood on steel and blood on bone/A black .45 and a stale microphone/The swampland boogies and the Heartland rocks/While the boys in the band are tickin’ like a clock/Southern Rock and Roll.” His band is named The 184 after the local Plumbers & Steamfitters Union in Paducah, Kentucky. It’s a nod both to the hard-working attitude of the group and to the years Logue spent on the job as a card-carrying member of that organization. It’s that same grind-it-out mentality still driving Tony every day. Dark Horse will be his third full length release since Jericho debuted in 2022 then followed with The Crumbs the next year each featuring a set of originals told from a blue-collar perspective.  

Review- Cristina Vane : Hear My Call

Review- Cristina Vane : Hear My Call

Derek Scudder

“A rock kid who is obsessed with old music” is one way Cristina Vane describes her distinctive sound built around her command of several instruments and confidence as a singer. The release of Hear My Call on February 21st marks her third full-length release since 2021 and reinforces Cristina’s place as a singer/songwriter with serious chops who is also a badass guitarist. Vane has a backstory that begins in Italy before a childhood in England and France and includes a half-American/half-Guatemalan heritage. Her musical roots may be classic rock, 90s Indie, and heavier rock but that is tempered by her passion for country and bluegrass, old time fiddle and banjo music, and pre-war blues tunes. “When it came to the album, I wanted it to be a reflection of who I am, not just of the old music that I’ve come to love,” she explains, “After being exposed to all of this music that was foreign to me, I am slowly figuring out how to find my own voice within it. It is the sound of growing up.”

Festival Review: 30A Songwriters Festival 2025

Festival Review: 30A Songwriters Festival 2025

John Schumacher

The name most commonly invoked on the stages of this year’s 30A Songwriters Festival was that of a person not even there: John Prine. The giant of folk and Americana songwriting died very early in the pandemic, but his presence still looms large.

Was the next John Prine onstage somewhere at this year’s 30A? The odds are pretty good. For the past 16 years, the organizers of the 30A Songwriters Festival have brought together over 125 of the best songwriters on the planet – some little known, some legends – for four days over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend along 20 miles of the Gulf Coast in Florida. 

Review- Willow Avalon: Southern Belle Raisin' Hell

Review- Willow Avalon: Southern Belle Raisin' Hell

Derek Scudder

She doesn’t sound like anybody else most people have heard of. That might be a problem for some, but Willow Avalon sounds a little like quite a few fantastic singer/songwriters across several genres. On Southern Belle Raisin’ Hell she uses her childhood in Georgia as the root for a selection of songs featuring her distinctive vocals in a variety of settings, but all coming from the center of a girl in the South. “I’ve got my mama’s mouth and my daddy’s drawl” might be more than just a clever line from the title track; Willow’s father is Jim White who happens to be another singer that doesn’t sound like anybody else most people have heard of. I asked him how much his genetics may be involved in Willow’s talent and Jim made it clear “she gets at least as much of her musical talent from her mom's side of the family as from anything from my end of the equation--her grandmom and two great aunts were incredible singers.” They were talented enough for Jim to have featured them singing “Knoxville Girl” in his film Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Now based out of New York, Willow plays, writes and produces her music alongside a small group of collaborators.

Review- Justin Bloss: Claymore

Review- Justin Bloss: Claymore

Derek Scudder

Justin Bloss has been playing the dive bars and tiny clubs around Tulsa for nearly twenty years with only a handful of releases that might give the rest of the world a hint at the genius that the locals have known for quite some time.  

Review- Ben Chapman: Downbeat

Review- Ben Chapman: Downbeat

Morgan Davis

Downbeat is Ben Chapman’s third full length album, following Make the Night Better from 2022 and last year’s Amber Sound, Vol. 1, and it gives a fresh look at the singer/songwriter from Lafayette, GA. If the songs feel real and personal, it’s because they are. They come from his own life experiences and observations of the music business, both the victories and the losses. 

Review- Buffalo Wabs & The Price Hill Hustle: Self-Titled

Review- Buffalo Wabs & The Price Hill Hustle: Self-Titled

Ryan Bush

It’s the type of tunes that you can hear the hardwood creak beneath the rocking chair. You taste the smoke from burning tobacco, feel the warmth of that Kentucky elixir spilling against your throat. Every note, a boot stomp in time to the lick of the banjo, heart bouncing with the tug of bass. The dust and dirt jumping from the floorboards to the kick of the drum - all, crashing into a chaotic symphony of folk mastery. Needless to say, Buffalo Wabs & The Price Hill Hustle don’t create the emotion - they are the emotion. 

Premiere- Nellen Dryden: At Midnight

Premiere- Nellen Dryden: At Midnight

Melissa Payne

Today we’re premiering ”At Midnight,” the newest single from Nellen Dryden’s upcoming album, Show Me The Way. “At Midnight,” is a testament to Dryden’s ability to channel raw emotion into art that resonates with listeners on multiple levels. A striking blend of Americana, roots-rock, and vintage soul; the song captures the feeling of searching for light in the midst of personal struggles. Dryden herself describes it as, "about looking deep into yourself and loss. I wrote it on guitar in a day. It came to me while I was going through a lot of bullshit and trying to see my way out... but as with songs, I sort of hope it takes on a meaning of its own for the listener." This openness gives the track a personal feel, inviting each person to find their own narrative within her words.

Review- Taylor Hunnicutt: With All Due Respect

Review- Taylor Hunnicutt: With All Due Respect

Derek Scudder

You know what follows is probably going to be something you don’t want to hear from somebody that has no business saying it. Saying “With all due respect…” seems to give some folks the green light to point out something grossly inappropriate or downright rude. Taylor Hunnicutt says she has taken the feeling of hearing that phrase and used it to fuel her passion, “the tone of this whole EP lies with the idea of just being done with this shit.”

Festival Review- Greatest Hits of AmericanaFest 2024

Festival Review- Greatest Hits of AmericanaFest 2024

John Carpenter

There is a tendency at multi-venue music festivals like Americanafest to overthink the line-up card. You race from one venue to another to try to create the perfectly curated live music experience from the dozens of great acts playing all over town, only to stand in the back or miss half the acts you wanted to see.  I’m more of a pick-a-venue-and-settle-in guy, and the Day One evening we had at 3rd and Lindsley is one reason why.

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