The Vespers
Breeding, right? Good upbringing can give you bad manners or a good sense of a dollar. Dependent upon home, you could end up giving thanks or robbing banks. Sisters Callie and 
Phoebe Cryar got the good stuff from their parents and home turf of Nashville. It affects us is in the same way many things do, through the music. The young ladies grew up in a musical family, their geography giving them a foot up for Music Row background vocal gigs. Sibling harmonies go in different directions. The Cryar sisters blend the purity of their individual harmonies with an intuitive sense of how a song should sound give thought to descriptions of singing capability that can range from ghostly and haunting or to honey sweet.
A chance meeting at a campfire jam brought brothers Bruno and Taylor Jones into the lives of Callie and Phoebe Cryar. The meeting/pairing became The Vespers, a backstory that includes music and beliefs that Bruno Jones describes, “We all grew up listening to a little bit of everything, but roots music didn’t come in until more recently. Folk and Roots music tend to draw from Spiritual themes. We don’t run away from our faith when writing, because that’s where our hearts are planted.”Lawdy” blends the vocals to perfection, the hush of the voices becoming itself an offering. The instrumentation uses the banjo rhythm bed to spring into a force that closes the song out. It is Sunday morning worship that still wears the Blues from Saturday night on its sleeve.
The Brothers Comatose
The banjo and fiddle play tag in the opening of “The Van Song” on The Brothers Comatose recent release. No surprise it is a road song, perfect fit for an album entitled Respect the Van.
“The Van Song” acts as an excellent road map for anyone who has not had the pleasure of the tour van experience. Nothing like it, really, which may be a good thing. All the odds point against the trip working out well. Four to ten people inside a metal tube, cardboard food and soda hydration. After two weeks what could be new. Musically, “The Van Song” is downright effervescent. If the only glimpse of touring was the music, then the line would go around the block to climb on board. Right there, that is the duality of being in a band on the road. On paper, it kind of sucks, but man, it is fun and makes for great stories.
The Brothers Comatose Respect The Van enough to tell its story with love. Though it is certainly not a requirement to be a road song on the album to take an empty seat, the tales do lean towards the traveling band. Titles such as “Pie For Breakfast”, “120 East”, “Pennies Are Money Too” could certainly be stories about any turn in life but they are more than likely phrases heard between waking up with someone’s foot in your face and returning to sleep at some distant point later in the day. Bluegrass is what fuels The Brothers Comatose van and their live shows.
DOWNLOAD THE BROTHERS COMATOSE "THE SCOUT"
Etta Britt
Out of the Shadows sneaks into the room and demands attention. Etta Britt grabs a song by the collar and uses in-your-face as a business model rather than just another way to get her point 
across. She is making lots of points withOut of the Shadows. She opens up with “Dog Wants In” on the album, immediately throwing down the gauntlet. Etta is ready for battling with the Blues as her mount, her ammo and the territory that she defends. Out of the Shadows is her debut, the title a hint to where X marks the spot in the recordings studios that Ms. Britt worked as a go-to background vocalist. The lady has lent pipes to recordings by Marty Stuart, Billy Joe Shaver, Al Cooper and Delbert McClinton (who returns the favor on Out of the Shadows). The shadow was a goal for Etta who tells that “when I first heard The Supremes, I wanted to be a Supreme. I never cared if I was Diana Ross”.
Etta Britt as the lead is a natural progression for her. She has done background vocals and as part of the meal, she was an ingredient but how can you say desert is just part of dinner? That glass of wine was just a piece of the meal? Special things always stand out so Etta Britt needs to have her new X planted center stage. Etta breaths soul into Out of the Shadows, adding uptown horns (“Leap of Faith”, “The Bigger the Love (The Harder The Fall)”), slowly percolating to a simmer (“High”, “Fallin”)and grabs a hold and does not let go until the last note has been satisfied (“The Chokin’ Kind”, “I Believe”).
DOWNLOAD ETTA BRITT "DOG WANTS IN"
Big Eagle
There was a Big Eagle in the late 1800’s,the leader of a band of Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux in Minnesota. Big Eagle was a part of the Sioux uprising. Robyn Miller now rides under the name 
of Big Eagle. The two share a name and probably a number of other traits. The one common ground that stands out is the natural ability to rule. On her album, Willow Creek, Big Eagle guides the songs, making sure that any sound or style that is part of her tribe gets heard. The pedal steel soars (“Out of Death”) and acoustic guitars strum soft folk chords (“For Sale”). As a banjo drives the tune, organ chords swell and swoop, punching the air that they take up sparring with spindly guitar notes that shred the arrangement with razor sharp rips in “Bill Robinson’s Run”.
Big Eagle has a voice that can come close to breaking with the weight of the tale (“Colorado”) and takes charge like the lady in “Anywhere The Wind Blows”, who has decided that her future life will hold no hand holding. Robyn Miller in her guise of Big Eagle had taken the path to big rock with the band The Peels in the mid-2000’s. She returned to her native Humboldt in Northern California, taking the album title Willow Creek from her surroundings and squeezing the nature of her environment to tap the beat to her songs.
DOWNLOAD BIG EAGLE "ANYWHERE THE WIND BLOWS"
Mosey West
A layer of distorted indie and Americana chords and vocal production pulsate and fill the air on 
Mosey West songs on the band’s latest release, merica. The use of mood sound shows that merica ground walked by artists from Gram Parsons through to M. Ward. The E.P., merica, is a home grown effort. Mosey West recorded in their native Colorado (Loveland) and played a slew of hometown shows for the album’s early May due date.
“In Tune” ambles in to the album quietly but with a slight tension in its edgy hushed chord pattern and echoey hum. The song builds nicely, riding the strings of the pedal steel to the surface. “The Storm” oom-pahs a walking pace for its path, “Hometown Heroes” follows the persistent beat of a rock parade for a story about the local guys who are big fish in small pools and “To Tame” partners harmonica and hollowed out chords together to stitch darkness around seductive vocals.
Lisa Biales
Just Like Honey. It is very possible that the album title is a Lisa Biales answer for the question, “says Lisa, what does your voice sound like”. The consistency of her delivery is similar to the
bee’s bread and butter running down the side of a jar. Her words drip over the songs, flowing into every opening and forming a bond with the music. Musically, Just Like Honey arrives with a blues/jazz stamp for the tracks included, Lisa covering songs by Memphis Minnie, Ma Rainey, Odetta, EG Kight, The Delmore Brothers, Etta James, Candye Kane, and Bonnie Raitt.
The strength in Lisa Biales voice is obvious. Where the lady separates from contenders is the approach she takes to the notes. Lisa can stretch out a note to the kind of length that makes you forget you are holding your breath. “Gifted in the Ways of Love” is an open letter from Lisa’s mama that is given a hefty beat that lets’ Ms. Biales the junior shout the words of her mother to the world. They worked for her, come on down and share! “Peaches” is an open air swing through the morning, “Gypsy Woman Blues” fire dances and steps lightly on a percussive bottom beat, “Sugar” finger snaps a laundry list of appropriate nicknames in which all apply and struts right on down to Dixie riding on the coattails of Ms. Raitt’s “Give It Up”.
DOWNLOAD LISA BIALES "PEACHES"
Bullet Bob & the Colts
When The Rolling Stones exited Main Street they left the door open just enough for Bullet Bob 
to walk right in, sit right down and find his own salvation in blues and rock. It’s All About the Song raises a ruckus on track number one, as BB and the boys spend some time “Bringin’ Back the Blues”, name checking and finger pointing the voices and playing that gives the genre a well-deserved spot in musical history.
It’s All About the Song stays close to rock, making sure to have Blues grooves and Country riffs on the trip when the songs visit. “Fountain of Dreams” steers a straight ahead rock course on a bass and drum beat passed down the Jersey pike from The Boss, fat guitar notes and organ swells offer a night light in “Tired of Dreaming Alone” and “She Has Everything” makes sure the first thing the lady in question packs is a solid rhythm. When Bullet Bob & The Colts find themselves at “Heaven’s Gate”, the music hushes to let the message through and once its meaning materializes, they up the ante and let the music roar.
DOWNLOAD BULLET BOB & THE COLTS "IT'S ALL ABOUT THE SONG"
Brad Yoder
Brad Yoder has consistently been in the Top Three slots for Best Acoustic/Solo Artist in the Pittsburgh City Paper. Home town fans have been on board since his Brad’s 2002 debut release.
He has beenacknowledged by Pittsburgh Magazine as “ruling the Pittsburgh coffeehouse scene,” stretching beyond the grounds of local baristas and extending his performance venues to playing colleges, cafés, churches, festivals, First Nights events and the occasional zoo.
An upright bass and mandolin flesh out the bare bones skeleton created by Brad Yoder and his guitar. For story lines, Brad uses a natural sense of timing, balancing humor, advice, experience and political views to craft his songs. His voice has a slightly nasal tone, the reedy quality offering balance to the rounded curves of the playing and the edge of the words. Excellent Trouble is the fifth self-released effort from Brad Yoder, with numbers totaling over 7,000 discs from album sales. Excellent Trouble chooses its vehicles from a wide variety of transportation. The album rides orchestral “Horses”, rattles and bumps along with folk/rock in “Someone to Be Lonely With”, glides with ease over “Lovely Traps” and uses the landscape passing by to tell of how what used to be and how the scene holds the image of “How It Ends”.
Steve Strongman
A Natural Fact is a blues record. The album spends time stripping down to just man and guitar. Steve Strongman has been touring North America and Europe for over twenty years, performing a major blues and jazz festivals globally, including the venerated Montreal International Jazz Festival. The Blues flies off A Natural Fact whether its rhythm slows to open up for a homebound heart (“Comin’ Home Tonight”), raise their back and wail (“The Mood”) and fast track riffs into a near lightnin’ speed that is only given a tie to earth by the slow turn vocals on “You Do It to Yourself”.
Steve Strongman is a Canadian bluesman, winning the 2011 prize for the Maple Blues Award for Guitar Player of the Year. A Natural Fact sways (“Rockin’ Chair Blues”), up the ante with a bass/drums rhythm that moves across a hurried arrangement and “Secret” rises up on handclap beats and acoustic strums. Steve Strongman, like his album title, is a natural for the blues thing.
DOWNOAD STEVE STRONGMAN "THE MOOD"
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