Devon Leger

Each year for the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited out to Montréal for the festival La Grande Rencontre. When I was a kid, I visited Montréal a few times to visit my grandmother Colombe Leblanc, and those are some of my best memories. A

The first vinyl I bought for myself was at the wonderful, tiny record store House of Records in Eugene, Oregon. I bought it because I saw my friend Jerry Gallaher on the cover. I’d been playing music at French-Canadian jam sessions in Seattle with Jerry and loved his banjo

"Stark" doesn’t even begin to describe the singing of Appalachian balladeer Dillard Chandler. "Otherworldly" might be a better descriptor. His singing sounds outside of our modern reality, so deeply rooted in the past that it’s almost exotic. Folk revival icon John Cohen certainly felt

I’ve been hearing about Sandy Bradley since I first moved to Seattle about 13 years ago. She’s considered one of the prime architects of Seattle’s folk scene, a legendary dance caller, a beloved radio host (of Sandy Bradley’s Potluck on Seattle’s KUOW for 13 years)

In my previous Vinyl Roots column, I talked about the reasons I came to vinyl in the first place. I don't necessarily have an audiophile perspective -- I listen to my vinyl records on a crappy Numark turntable with mediocre bookshelf reference speakers. It's more about