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The Big Takeover Reviews Tai Shan’s New Album

Like all great music, Tai Shan’s song-crafting is about much more than just the matching of sounds and styles into new sonic shapes. True, she has managed to weave a signature sound that relies on folk and jazz, Americana, and even indie-pop, and so creating a blend of music that echoes with authenticity and also infectiousness, which is deftly woven but easily accessed. However, it is the additional, less tangible qualities that bring the music to life.

It is the stuff of life – motherhood, travel, personal reflection, wanderlust, and the comfort of family – that is the musical glue that holds the nuanced notes and poetic lyrics together. And the result of all these factors is a wonderfully ironic contradiction – never has an album made you simultaneously want to hold your family close and head off down the highway in search of adventure.

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Rock and Roll Globe Premieres New Music From Paula Boggs Band

The music Paula Boggs and her band creates has been called “Soulgrass” –a magical combination of soul music and Bluegrass with elements of jazz and Americana. 

It’s a sound that earned this group big critical acclaim with the release of their 2022 studio LP Janus, a work hailed by No Depression, who proclaimed, “The storytelling on this record will pull you in, but it’s the musicianship that ultimately takes center stage, thanks to an elegant, groove-laden soundscape crafted by an all-star backing band.”

And on their excellent new album, Live at Sweetwater Music Hall, the PBB flex their sonic muscles on the famed concert stage in Mill Valley, CA, where they cut loose with a performance for the ages. 

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B-Sides & Badlands Premieres New Song From Tai Shan

The open road is a special place. The wind brushing your hair; the summer sun setting on your lips; and nature appearing limitless around your feet – all conspiring to rejuvenate the body. Singer-songwriter Tai Shan certainly knows that feeling, as she attests with her song “Road Back to Me.” Premiering today, the breezy, road-trippin’ tune infects the eardrums and makes you wiggle in your seat. It shimmers as Shan turns over the melody in her hands, her voice feathered and a little world-weary. But there’s lightness in the way she crafts the lyrics. She knows full well that hitting the highway will do her body good.

“My heart, my home, my who I want to be / My blood, my bones, that girl inside of me!” she wails in the bridge. Guitars thrash around her, flapping in the wind. Written with Bradley Collins and Elizabeth Eckert, the anthem was born out of a conversation around Collins’ recent breakup and subsequent cross-country drive back to Nashville.

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The Bluegrass Situation Premieres New Song From Mike Montrey Band

Coming from Americana and country camps, don’t miss a hilarious video from Jordie Lane paying homage to an East Nashville favorite, Nashville Biscuit House, Cole Gallagher shares a track that dropped earlier this week entitled “Traveling Man’s Blues,” and Mike Montrey Band serve up a quintessentially country love song, “Holdin’ on to Nothin’.”

“‘Holdin’ on to Nothin’ is about the process of love. It seems, more often than not, the story of love in songs is about the beautiful beginning, the tragic end, or the celebration of sustained love. However, it is often what we choose to hold on to or let go of in the most critical moments of a relationship that allows us to move forward or move on. Sometimes we just hold on to hope and sometimes we’re holdin’ on to nothin’.” – Mike Montrey

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Americana UK Reviews Jake Neuman’s New EP

Okay, it’s July, and time for our regular ‘EP’s Round-Up’, of all that falls under the Americana Music banner. This month’s collection offers a broad selection of the genre, so plenty to get your teeth into, and hopefully something to satisfy all tastes. Dig in…

…As usual I have saved what I consider to be the best until last, though to be fair it was a very tight call. Jake Neuman & The Jaybirds debut release is this five-track EP entitled “Little Bitty Town”, recorded at Peacedale Records and Studio in Connecticut under the watchful eye of producer Gregory Dwane Griffith. Twentyfive year old Neuman’s backstory is a compelling narrative of resilience and determination which saw him struck down with a life-threatening brain haemorrhage back in 2020 during which time he turned to music as a lifeline.

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Rainbow Rodeo Reviews Shawna Virago’s New Album

Blood In Her Dreams, the latest album by Shawna Virago, is a shining example of what results from opening the door for queer people to places that, historically, have ostracized us. Too often, queer and trans stories are left out of talk about folk, country, and Americana music, despite our experiences being most authentic to the roots of the genre. 

Virago is an iconic San Francisco-based singer-songwriter and transgender woman who’s been performing as her authentic self, as she notes in interviews, since the early ‘90s. Dubbed the ‘fairy godmother of trans country artists,’ Virago’s work is a north star for a genre struggling to connect to its roots.

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