Maeri Ferguson

I wish I could remember where I once heard the brilliant theory that the band Mumford & Sons were like the Cheetos and sweatpants of folk music. I recall the coined term “gateway folk” being the entry point to this analogy, essentially comparing the band’s music to smoking pot,

The brothers at the center of Appalachian folk-rock group Wayne Graham had something of a return to form at the start of making their latest record, 1% Juice. Kenny and Hayden Miles went back to the basement studio in their childhood home in Whitesburg, Kentucky, to work on a collection

“No more hateful TV / no more hateful texting / no more hateful Donald … Duck,” goes “Over and Out,” the final track on Another World, the sophomore release from The Flat Five. “The train has left the station / to another world.” With such a cheeky wink, the Chicago fivesome make it clear

You probably know the sound of Spencer Cullum’s pedal steel guitar, behind which he is most often situated as he backs up the likes of Miranda Lambert, Deer Tick, and countless others. Or perhaps you know him best as one half of Steelism, his instrumental duo with guitarist Jeremy

The best thing about a double album from Cut Worms is that once you start listening to Cut Worms, you want it to go on and on forever, and with nearly 20 tracks to get lost in, that feels possible. Nobody Lives Here Anymore is 80 minutes of escapism from

The beauty of William Tyler’s beguiling guitar arrangements lies in their power to transport you to another time and place. If inspired by a vast, harsh landscape in the old American West, you can actually hear in his composition the dry cracking of the earth, the windswept dust settling.