Hats off to the Americana Music Foundation for a sublime moment at the end of this year’s awards show. Instead of the usual...

The list of cultural seats for the Irish-American diaspora usually starts and ends with New York or Boston. Chicago maybe. But Tulsa? Not...

A writer's attachment to an heirloom in his family's Narragansett Beach Cottage stirs up fond memories and a connection to Civil War...

A real rock and roll show broke out at the Ryman Auditorium the other day. And we were lucky to be there with pretty good seats. Grace...

You know you’re going to hear beautiful music at a Milk Carton Kids show. But there is trepidation when they are the headliner. A small...

Okay, maybe not piss off exactly. It takes an artist of a certain stature and temperament to make 2,300 fans wait through two-plus hours...

I generally think of music festivals as minimally clad young people writhing in blazing heat taking duck-lip selfies amid a greater...

Always good to start the year with a 2,300-person sing-along. (And I’m not talking about “Auld Lang Syne,” a song I never really...

The shifting ground between youth and adulthood in my post-college years was an awesome time, at least as far as I can remember. It was a...

Thanksgiving is upon us, and that means Last Waltz season for fans of the greatest concert movie ever made. (Sorry/not sorry to fans of...

As we walked in the door of the CMA Theatre in downtown Nashville, we could hear the crowds screaming about a block away. The big stars...

One thing we’ve learned about the Nashville music scene is to be on the look-out for any show that suggests the presence of “session...

“Let’s see if we can turn a Sunday night into a Saturday night,” Jason Isbell told his band. Then they did. What a pleasure to catch a...

Rhiannon Giddens and her band served up a lot of powerful music at the Ryman Auditorium this weekend. But it was a salty,...

(Note: This article was originally published in the Chicago Tribune on April 19, 2023.) I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the...

I counted out a sizable bet and slid it across the green felt toward the three aces face-up in the middle of the table. Then I rested my...

The “in the round” show is a staple of Nashville entertainment. Sometimes called a guitar pull, and often performed in a row rather than...

Not long ago a live-music-loving friend told me that the Avett Brothers were the one band he would still see over and over again. Now...

Any night you find yourself standing 15 feet from a harmony-singing Emmylou Harris is a good night. The show was Aoife O’Donovan at the...

We rolled up onto a bridge curving high over the interstate and I looked out at flatness as far as the eye could see, stretched taught...