Frog Pad
These guys be jammin’. In their first two years, Yonder Mountain String Band went from playing Colorado coffee shops with a dozen people in the audience to gigging at prestigious bluegrass and folk festivals and selling out small venues across the land.
Dualtone
A couple of things work in this disc’s favor.
First, it’s been four years since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s last full-length studio album, “Bang Bang Bang,” and that had but one in-house track; so it’s been 10 years since an album of mostly original material (1994’s “Acoustic”).
Eleven Thirty
Enough can’t be said about this Austin, Texas-based group. If every band wrote, played and sang as well as the Gourds, music fans would be in heaven.
Funzalo Records
Discovering Tony Furtado is like finding out about one of your guitar heroes’ obscure influences — someone you’ve never heard of who’s been around for a while and plays to beat the devil.
Handsome Productions
All right, punk. You better get over here and listen to this reunion album by the notorious Backdoor Men. What’s that? You never heard of ’em? Where you been, livin’ under a rock or somethin’?
