Donna the Buffalo's eclectic and often socially conscious music has it's base in traditional mountain music and is infused with elements of Cajun/ zydeco, rock, folk, reggae, and country. The group’s core are vocalists Tara Nevins, who plays fiddle, guitar, accordion, and scrubboard, and guitarist Jeb Puryear. Keyboardist Dave McCracken, bassist Jay Sanders, and drummer Vic Stafford complete the ensemble. Donna the Buffalo represents one of the most respected brands in the world of touring roots acts. For 21 years DTB has performed feel good, infectious music that often moves listeners physically and spiritually. In the words of a longtime fan, "Their songs are well known to contain lyrics offering poetry and sage commentary on the attractions and struggles with love and politics in this life. Their magnetic musical mix has often been described as dance music, and, for sure, there is everything from foot-tapping to get-up-and-feel-ecstatic moving in their sound; but there is also some deeply satisfying solace in what DTB has to say and how they say it. The dynamic songwriting tandem of Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins have penned over 140 songs in their collaboration with DTB." Their fervent fan base, self-named The Herd, follows the band with zeal and has created a unique and supportive community online and at DTB shows across the nation. As an extension of this community and the band's own dedication to live roots music, Donna started, and are still the driving force behind, the Finger Lakes Grass Roots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, NY. 2010 marks the festival's 20th year. Stemming from its success, a second Grass Roots Festival was started in Silk Hope, North Carolina in 2002: the now biannual Shakori Hills Grass Roots Festival. Over the years, Donna the Buffalo has had the opportunity to collaborate and/or record with musicians such as Jim Lauderdale, Preston and Keith Frank, Bela Fleck, Mamadou Diabate, Claire Lynch, David Hidalgo, The Duhks and Amy Helm, just to name a few. This past year, Nevins also toured with former Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann's band BK3. The band's 2008 release Silverlined, on Sugar Hill Records, rose to 8 on the Americana Music Chart. With a twenty-one year tenure to celebrate, hundreds of gigs ahead of them, and an ever-evolving grassroots sound; it looks like Donna the Buffalo is riding a cloud that is truly Silverlined.

Formed in 2008, Elmwood has quickly become one of the Southeast's most sought after live bands after dates with G. Love and Special Sauce, Tea Leaf Green, Pat McGee Band and side-stage performances with the Dave Matthews Band. Ending the year on a high note Elmwood will support O.A.R. through October and November playing theaters and small arenas.

Their music is hard to put in one category. Elements of rock, pop, funk, soul and jazz permeate the songs creating a different experience around every corner. The band however truly shines with their energetic live performance.

Singer and guitar player Rusty Kelly and bass player Nash Johnson met in college where they started performing together as an acoustic duo. Sax player Derek Haight and drummer Donnie Marple came on board after responding to craigslist ad's looking for musicians. Derek came from four years of international touring, playing over 50 countries, and Donnie coming from his 2007 win of the Guitar Center Drum-off (do yourself a favor and check out the mind-blowing video of his winning solo on youtube!) where he was crowned best drummer in the US.

Following in the footsteps of the many bands before them to build a career on the road, the Elmwood guys look forward to the next few years getting to know the inside of a van as they criss-cross the US bringing their mindblowing live show to anyone and everyone who will listen. If the reaction from fans in the first year is any indication it won't be long before you are converted after seeing their high energy and musically inspiring live show.

Grammy award winning singer/songwriter/bar-room guitar player Dave Alvin has been a constant force in traditional American roots music, both electric and acoustic, for over 25 years. From his earliest days with roots pioneers The Blasters through his stinits with punk rock/folkies X and The Knitters through his various solo releases, Dave has mixed blues, folk, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, country, surf, cajun and even doo wop into his own unique brand of American Music. His songs have been recorded by Los Lobos, Buckwheat Zydeco, Robert Earl Kean, Dwight Yoakam, Kelly Willis, James McMurtry, Joe Ely and Little Milton to name a few, and have been heard in tv shows like THE SOPRANOS and movies like CRYBABY and THELMA AND LOUISE.

Efterklang is an indie pop-rock group from Copenhagen, Denmark, formed in December 2000. To date, the band has released three studio albums and are currently signed to the 4AD label, as well as their own record label Rumraket.

The name Efterklang comes from the Danish word for "remembrance" or "reverberation." Formed in Copenhagen, its four core members are: Casper Clausen, Mads Brauer, Thomas Husmer, and Rasmus Stolberg. The original lineup also included Rune Mølgaard, but he has taken a more secluded role since 2007. When performing live, the core four-piece band is complemented with the addition of three to four closely-related live band members.

Efterklang released their first album Tripper to warm critical acclaim in autumn 2004. Their second album Parades, released in October 2007, was released to widespread critical acclaim, and was named the 38th best album released between April 2005 to April 2009 by Clash Magazine in April 2009. In September 2008, Efterklang and The Danish National Chamber Orchestra performed Parades in its entirety at the Copenhagen Concert Hall; the performance was documented on a limited edition LP/DVD set entitled Performing Parades, which was released in October 2009.

In September 2009, it was announced that Efterklang had signed a new record deal with the British independent label 4AD. Their third full-length album Magic Chairs was Efterklang's first release on their new label, released on February 22, 2010.

The Floorwalkers 

By John Petric
Published: The Other Paper, Wednesday, February 11, 2009 4:01 PM EST

I was listening to the Floorwalkers EP the other day for the first time in, oh, 18 months and I was seriously struck by how beautiful and soulful singer Jonathan Elliott’s voice is. It’s just heartbreaking—he’s a white, junior soul man. The cat can sing. (And whoever did the engineering recorded him near perfectly.)

 

By coincidence, the Floorwalkers were playing at the Thirsty Ear Friday, so I went, getting in at the end of their first set just as they were in the homestretch of the Allman Brothers’ “One Way Out.” Guitarist Kerry Henderson was sitting, playing a lap steel and smokin’ a blistering reincarnation of Duane’s sweetly stinging leads.

Clearly, this band always has had and still does have something.

Their second set was mostly original, mostly good-timey, slightly jam-bandy and mostly easy going. Girls danced every song, a rarity in that place. Girls, that is.

As for the songs themselves, the Floorwalkers are concerned with feel first, form second. In short, they are but one sympathetic producer away from tweaking their material to what I think would be the beginning of the big time for them—they are that tantalizingly close to having it all in one fine package.

In the meantime, my loving criticism, gentlemen: Fire your soundman, or at least beat him until he mixes Jonathan’s voice where it should be—out front and in the open. It is simply too fine an instrument to have competing against everyone else’s output.

As for your penchant for trading instruments among yourselves more than any band I’ve ever seen, uh, I think that might not fly once you get to the next level.

But then again, do whatever the hell you want. You sure do seem to love making music.

The year 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the first Strawbs album on A&M Records.
The nucleus of Strawbs are David Cousins, Dave Lambert, and Chas Cronk, the front-line of the classic 1970s line-up of Britain’s most successful international folk-rock band, and who now tour as Acoustic Strawbs.  
In the early 1970s Strawbs scored chart success in Britain with huge albums such as ‘Grave New World’ and ‘Bursting at the Seams’.  From the mid-1970s as the group concentrated their attention on the United States and Canada where their albums, including the classics ‘Hero and Heroine’ and ‘Ghosts’, spent over fifty two weeks on the Billboard charts.  Strawbs toured with the likes of Santana, Peter Frampton, The Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Joe Walsh, Blue Oyster Cult, King Crimson, and Frank Zappa. Dave Cousins, leader of Strawbs, recently received BPI platinum discs in recognition of worldwide sales of the albums ‘Grave New World’ and ‘Bursting at the Seams’. 

Chris Knight is an American country music singer and songwriter from Kentucky. He has come only recently to national attention, but has written songs for Confederate Railroad, John Anderson, and Randy Travis among others. He is perhaps best known for writing the hit Montgomery Gentry song “She Couldn’t Change Me” and due to his particular fame in Texas, has been named an “Honorary Texan” by Texas Governor Rick Perry. He has been compared to Steve Earle and John Prine throughout his career as a musician.

Chris Knight was born on June 24, 1960. He grew up in the western Kentucky mining town of Slaughters. Knight started on his musical journey at just three years old when he requested a plastic guitar for Christmas. When he turned 15, he became more serious and began teaching himself John Prine songs on his older brother’s guitar. He has a degree in agriculture from Western Kentucky University. He worked for close to ten years as a mine reclamation inspector and as a miner’s consultant. In 1986, after earning his degree, he heard Steve Earle on the radio and decided to try his hand at writing songs. After six years of working on his songs he came to Nashville and won a spot on a songwriters’ night at the Bluebird Cafe. He snatched the interest of Frank Liddell, who signed him to a publishing deal with Bluewater Music. He then went back home and kept writing, and when Decca Records hired Liddell for an A&R position, Knight got a record deal and Decca released his self-titled debut in 1998. Knight still lived in a trailer house on 90 acres in Slaughters when the album was released. He has since become a popular name in the Americana music genre.

It takes guts to start your album off with The Bawds of Euphony, an instrumental banjo tune that draws its cryptic title from the words of a Wallace Stevens poem. But Tony Furtado is a man unafraid to go with his heart when it comes to his music. Tony’s 14th album, entitled Deep Water, comes entirely from Tony’s heart. This CD is 100% Tony Furtado, from the cover art that he created, to the collection of 14 songs that he wrote and chose specifically for Deep Water. Here you will find tunes that embrace his love of slide guitar, his prowess as a banjo player, and his ability to write a song that elicits deep emotion. Produced by the fabulous (and slightly mad) Sean Slade (The Pixies, Radiohead, Dinosaur Jr., Dresden Dolls), Deep Water wanders through a wide array of sentiment; from joy and love, to despair and hopelessness. Recorded in Boston, away from managers, label employees, publicists or loved ones, Sean and Tony came together to make a record Tony truly wanted to create.

“To me, this album is a snapshot of my life and the world around me when I wrote and recorded it. Influences ranged from the politically charged air and environtmentally changing world, to the authors I was reading (Edward Abbey, Wallace Stevens Charles Bukowski, Richard Wright) and songwriters I was listening to (Tom Waits, Elliot Smith, Bon Iver) I have to say, this album ranks pretty high on the “moody scale” for me.”

Check out Caspian here.