LoS
Leftover Salmon is back after an eight-year recording hiatus. The band had decided to give it a rest in 2005, after 15 years as a unit and three years following original banjo player Mark Vann’s surrender to cancer. 2007 saw the first in a series of occasional reunion shows, but the fire wasn’t stoked until RockyGrass Banjo Contest winner Andy Thorn was recruited in 2010.
Lo-Ball
Joe Goldmark is the keeper of the instrumental pedal steel guitar flame. On his last album, 2007’s “Seducing the ’60s,” he branched out by including guest vocalists on half the songs. Now, for his ninth solo album (he also was a member of Jim Campilongo and the 10 Gallon Cats as well as the Twangbangers), he branches out further with a double album — a vocal disc and an instrumental disc.
Ruf
This blues-rock supergroup formed in response to the question, “Why haven’t the Allmans and Nevilles ever collaborated?” Technically, no one from the Allman Brothers Band is here — but Gregg Allman’s guitar-playing son Devon is, along with the youngest Neville Brother, 64-year-old percussionist Cyrille.
