​Ruthie Foster (from the album Just Say Yes available on Sun Label Group) (by Danny McCloskey)
A low-rolling groove begins the song cycle for Ruthie Foster on Just Say Yes, her recent release. The opening track that rocks with a rumble is “Thank You”. The appreciation on “Thank You” is a reverse-image as Ruthie Foster reminds that she has ‘attitude in my gratitude’, finger-pointing transgressions as she heads for the door in a relationship. The first cut on Just Say Yes sets the bar for the song roster of the album. She is “Reachin’” when she asks for a break over a beat that demands action rather than requests help, tenderly slowly the music to a hush for the advice of “Take Time” and second-guessing final decisions for “Doubling Back”. 
Austin, Texas-based Ruthie Foster delivers her follow-up to 2025’s Mileage, which garnered the powerhouse singer/songwriter a Grammy award. Produced by Tyler Bryant (The Shakedown) and his wife Rebecca Lovell (Larkin Poe), Just Say Yes is a melting pot of sounds, mixing in Blues, Rock’n’Rhythm, Roots, and Soul music. “Hold On” has some guitar string accents yet the sonics that surround the song are all rhythm as the scratch of electric guitar strings are a siren call into the hard-hitting beat of “Make It Up” while a quiet piano reverie spreads out by becoming the persistent groove that carries “Yes”. A hard-hitting goodbye pounds out its message in “Tangled” while Larkin Poe join Ruthie Foster in the inspiration of “Come on Up”.
 
Capturing the spirit of Just Say Yes, Ruthie Foster shares a personal message about the album, stating ‘this record is from my heart to yours. I hope these songs sit with you; hold you close and remind you you're not alone. If even one line makes you feel seen, that's everything to me’.  (by Danny McCloskey) 
 
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​Clay Street Unit (from the album Live from the Road Vol. 1 on Leo33 Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
The latest from Denver’s Clay Street Unit has enough musical umph to satisfy Southern Rock, Roots music, and, of course, festival going string-band fans. With cuts pulled from various shows around the country, Live from the Road Vol. 1 finds the band digging into heady ballads, intricate mountain music, and loads of jam band musical stretches. Live from the Road Vol 1 is a recording that will connect the dots between Folk, NewGrass and Southern Rock with plenty of panache; it also showcases their ability as a live band. 
Boogie-grass is ever present in album opener “Freightline Blues”, a cut ripe for a festival field or to soundtrack driving your big rig down the highway while “Let’s Get Stoned” is a steel-guitar heavy Country cut ready for a slow dance or relaxing in a haze of smoke.
Funky Southern Rock blend with a NewGrass jam for “One Last Time,” a cut clocking in just past nine minutes that is tripped out psychedelic. The closing cuts on this live release likely whip their fans into a frenzy; their cover of MGMT’s “Kids” and The Band’s “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down” are played with few liberties taken, save for a huge jam dropped within the former, while every soloist takes a trip in the latter.
This is a great document of a great band’s live show. Clay Street Unit falls right into place alongside the canon of Colorado string bands. (by Bryant Liggett)
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​Thomas Csorba (from the album Tender Country available on Turtlebox Records/Missing Piece Group) (by Danny McCloskey)
 
Houston-born, Dallas-based Texas songman Thomas Csorba offers a new album, Tender Country. He opens shuffling his visions of “The Big Time”, showing the life of a working musician as it plays out in images of rise, fall, the wins, and the loses. The good life found at home warms the love pouring from a cover of O.C. Smith’s “Little Green Apples” while Tender Country feels its pulse rise on the rumbling rhythm cruising underneath “Bigger Wheels” as Thomas Csorba raises a toast when he mixes up a batch of “Homemade Margaritas”.
 
Foregoing the fronting brags found in contemporary Country music cuts, Thomas Csorba settles in with gentleness and humor for the songs on Tender Country. Family planning writes the lines of “Tony Rice & Beans” as Thomas Csorba hushes the melody to a whisper to deliver memories in “He Would’ve Loved This”. He keeps the quiet in place to begin the well-wishes of “Bigger Than Your Hat” and sharing secrets with “You Think You Know Someone” before exiting Tender Country with a love song in “Something”. (by Danny McCloskey)
 
Listen to Thomas Csorba on the Breaking Thru Spotify playlist
 
Find more information and purchase options on the Thomas Csorba website
 

​Michael McDemott (from the album Flowers from the Graveyard available on Pauper Sky Records) (by Danny McCloskey)
Consistency is king, and for over thirty year, Michael McDermott has stayed true to the song. Giving it up to the Rock’n’Roll gods early in life, Micheal McDermott has never let them down, delivering lyrics that may leave a scar, a backbeat that is blood hitting the heart, and jangling melodies to lighten the mood. Whether in acoustic mode or backed with a band, Michael McDermott introduces a cast of characters as he bares his own soul in the stories. His recent release, Flowers from the Graveyard. “The Lords of Lincoln Park” greets street people who carve their names in the asphalt that swallows them up while “Johnny Sparrow and The Sunset Girl” watches love take root, bloom, and die in a concrete jungle.
The title track for Flowers from the Graveyard fills its stories with warnings and promises as” The Future” rises up with anthemic chords and observations of the life passing by right outside your window, providing a street-savvy mantra with the wisdom of ‘the future ain’t what it used to be’. Michael McDermott urges humans worldwide to ‘hold on a little bit longer’ in the optimism of “The Struggle Makes You Stronger”. Bookending the human condition with a beat and a hope, Flowers from the Graveyard opens its heart. Observations from behind the driving wheel are heard in “Old Feelings” as Michael McDermott balances optimism with wishes for the characters walking through “Always a Ways Away” and tenderly deciphers movie scenes with “But for the Little Moments”. Flowers from the Graveyard uses a Rock’n’Roll strut to cross its title track while Michael McDermott borders the tough love beat of opening cut “The Best We Get” with the dreamscape melodies in final track “Ain’t Life Beautiful”. (by Danny McCloskey)
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​Two Runner (from the album Porchlight available on Gar Hole Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
File under Bluegrass, Old-Time Music, or Folk, the latest from Two Runner is an apt receptor for all three descriptors. You can also mention dusty Twang or Country Goth, and you’ll be in the ballpark, however Porchlight, and the songs of Paige Anderson, is the kind of album that leans into the aforementioned but doesn’t keep both feet in any camp.
The haunting title track is marked by heaven sent harmonies, both Anderson Emilie Rose dropping a delivery both lonely and timeless. Those vocals continue as their Front-Porch holler harmonies are worth the price of admission alone, especially on Western drenched “Strawberry Rhinestone” where the duo’s voices dip into Cessna and Denver sound territory.   
The clawhammer banjo that introduces “Punk Rock Bar” further paves the road between music equally Old Time and angst, “Witch Well” has hints of psychedelia, and “Late Dinner” is a song of wishes, loneliness, and memories.
Old-time has always had a trance element, its rhythmic drive pushing “Burnout” and the closer “Bridge” sounds like something that could have come from 1970’s Laurel Canyon and AM-Gold Radio. Stark musical presentation and a minimalist delivery present a no-frills simplicity, but don’t let that foul anyone into thinking this is lacking any ‘umph’ as anyone within earshot of these stories, and the harmonies that back those tales, will realize this is Folk packing a musical gut-punch. (by Bryant Liggett)
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​Chris Pierce (from the album Songs for the Heavy Hearted available on Missing Piece Group) (by Bryant Liggett)
The latest from Chris Pierce will tell you that Americana and Roots music is not just something with hints of everything acoustic. Yes, Songs for the Heavy Hearted, has some Folk leanings, but also digs into Soul, mellow Funk and R&B ballads, the best of the melting pot that is Americana and Roots music. 
There’s the opener in “This Sunlit Morning” a heavy ballad that kicks off with Dylan-esque harmonica before turning into a hold your partner close ballad ripe for a slow dance. “First Day of School” is a weeper; anyone that has sent a kid off to school in a civilized state is nervous, this cut takes on a big dose of reality in an uncivilized nation. The single in “It Ain’t Ever Wrong to Be Free” is a dose of Gospel with thick hymnal harmonies, “Kalief Browder” is another heavy cut about a wrongfully imprisoned young man, a story everyone should know and be outraged by, and “That Was My Pride” finds Chris Pierce joined by the wonderful Grey Delisle in a support vocal role that’s subtle and sweet.
Love songs, heavy ballads alongside lyrics both picturesque and moving. Chris Pierce nails an album for cheery mornings and heady inspiration, and with people like the aforementioned Grey DeLisle, Allison Russell and Steve Earle, he is keeping great vocal and activist company. (by Bryant Liggett) 
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Billy Strings (from the album So Much for Goodbyes available on Reprise Records) (by Bryant Liggett)
Like it or not, Billy Strings is doing a lot for the Bluegrass community. The bulk of the ‘a lot’ statement remains in awareness as the man and band continue to turn twirling jam-band dancers onto both traditionalists, like The Stanley Brothers, and fringe Bluegrassers, such as Bad Livers. He is doing so with multiple albums stacked with plenty of stringed theatrics along with heartfelt lyrics, all notable on his latest in So Much for Goodbyes. The recording tributes his late mother (whose artwork graces the cover). So Much for Goodbyes is also one of the better Bluegrass releases of the year.
Cuts like “Lucid Daydream”, with its prog riffs and improvisational vibe, nod to the experimental nature that has always flowed through Billy String’s art while Mill Street Flood” showcases his ability to write a hell of a working class, broken-hearted ballad. The triple offering of songs that will note this as a Bluegrass classic comes via “Bluewater Breakdown”, “Light the Way”, and “I Like Train Songs”. They are a trio that showcases instrumental and instrument prowess; a killer, harmony heavy, Gospel number and a classic train song. The album closer “Debra’s Waltz” would have Bill Monroe, Steve Martin, and the brothers Stanley all giving approval.
This is a killer Bluegrass record, with plenty of songs that may only get to fans hears via traditional bluegrass radio, others you can tell are ripe for Strings’ epic live shows. (by Bryant Liggett)
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​Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country (from the album Ryman to Robert’s available from Retrace Music) (by Bryant Liggett)
Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country continues to give Country music a dosed kick in the rear. Like New Grass Revival was to Bluegrass, Donato and Cosmic Country are pushing the boundaries Classic Country into Jam Band territory, while keeping it traditional. They are a blast of Gram Parson’s Cosmic American Music on steroids. Daniel Donato and the band’s latest release, Ryman to Roberts, is a live show from August 22, 2025. The recordings took place in two legendary Nashville venues: The Ryman Auditorium and Roberts Western World. 
The Ryman set kicks off with the band keeping it Classic and quick, “Working Man Blues” and “Blame the Train” are a couple of shitkickers with a bang. “Fortunate Sparrow” is a 15-minute epic that goes from dusty Western score to space exploration. Their version of “I Saw the Light” keeps it honest while “Hangman’s Reel” finds Donato and team digging into a trance-like vibe. The nearly 20-minute long “Dance in the Desert” begins life as a funky Techno-cut and rolls into chanting Space Rock before rising in to furious Punk-Country jam. “Waymore’s Blues” rolls from a heavy Blues singalong into a chugging “Mystery Train”.
The Roberts set finds Daniel Donato keeping it old school but with plenty of Country Boogie. “Truck Driving Man”, “Big River”, and “I’m Sitting on Top Of the World” and hell, the whole damn record, are packed with Jam courtesy of what is a stacked Rock’n’Roll band playing amped up Country music, all with a nod to the past while being unafraid to take chances. (by Bryant Liggett)
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​The Kearns Family (from the E.P. Side Trips available on Goat Mountain Records) (by Danny McCloskey)
Only five songs are available on Side Trips, the recent E.P. release from The Kearns Family. The duo does justice to their Hi Desert environs on every note, granting the songs breathing room, much like the wide-open spaces in which they were born. Four of the songs are covers, with one original written by Pat Kearns along with Will Amato, “The Ballad of Bobby Furst”. The story champions Bobby Furst who passed away on June 8, 2025. The song takes you ‘to the Hi Desert where the Joshua Trees grow’, moving alongside Bobby as he travels from Laurel Canyon, following the Route 62 highway up and up, seeing the beauty of life in every artifact buried in the sand and revealed by the wind. Bobby Furst built Frustworld; The Kearns Family describing his being and the space as ‘a place for art, and a passion so real’.
A slowly unraveling rhythm defines the dusty groove of “When the Nights Are Cold”; a Butch Hancock tune brought to life by Jimme Dale Gilmore. Reimagining Abba as Barstow bar band, Side Tripsopens its song cycle with “Dancing Queen” as The Kearns Family trudge over a molasses slow rhythm to deliver Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin’”. Offering another opinion for Roly Salley’s “Killing the Blues”, The Kearns Family (Pat Kearns on vocals, guitar and Susan Kearns on upright bass) take the hesitated hopes talked about in the lyrics and provide a soundtrack that matches the roller-coastered emotions of the tale to perfection. (by Danny McCloskey)
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Adam Chaffins (from the album Trailer Trash: Doublewide on Spirit Nashville Recordings/Fluid Music Revolution) (by Bryant Liggett) 
 
Nashville, by way of Kentucky, musician Adam Chaffins proves that Country and Roots music can be inspired by Soul and Rhythm & Blues as much as traditional Nashville or Hillbilly music. His latest in Trailer Trash: Doublewide, displays plenty of Country Twang, delivered amidst songs featuring rich stories from a colorful upbringing, and it does so with a load of Rootsy grooves.
 
There’s the album opener in “Living Til My Dying Days” is an inspiring head-bobber of living your best life, and the laid-back bouncing Folk and Funk continues via cuts like the colorful “Flea Market”, a tune that will resonate with anyone that has wandered the aisles packed with vintage dealers anywhere in the world; other people’s trash is your treasure. For those that have given more than they get in a relationship comes the aching-for-the-life portrayed in the splendidly penned, over the top catchy, “You Get Drunk, I’ll Get High” while “Get Rich” is a cool admission on making music for the love of the art, Adam Chaffins’ lyrical detail (as well as a way of writing a melodic hook) will put you a barstool away in his “Dive Bar Moses”, a cut that will have you singing every word after a second listen.
Adam Chaffins, and Trailer Trash: Doublewide, is 14-cuts of Country Funk and Slacker cool. (by Danny McCloskey)
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