Voted Kentucky’s Favorite Musical Group in 2016, Jericho Woods are poised to bring that winning sound to the other forty-nine with their new single, “Better Now.” Blending their love of varied genres, Jericho Woods merge Country, Rock, Roots, Bluegrass, and more into a sound that is both familiar and unique on memorable tunes that are as catchy as they are relatable. Josh Mitcham (guitar & vocals) and Paul Priest (bass & vocals) graciously took the time for a chat about their roots, “Better Now,” and more.

The two of you are cousins, but can you elaborate on how Jericho Woods came together?
Josh: Jericho Woods has been together for a little over three years now. I had been in a band for fifteen years and Paul was playing Bluegrass. We always wanted to play together, but we were kind of like ships in the night and it never worked out. I did a solo record and was teaching high school while Paul retired from Bluegrass. We then started playing together and it just felt good, so we asked other guys to join us - and it kind of ruined our lives (laughing), but in the best way possible. I was living what seemed like parallel lives: I was this married guy with kids, teaching high school who was playing living this rock and roll lifestyle on the weekends, but all while I knew I wanted to do music and finally this opportunity came along and we realized we had the possibility of this being something great.

Paul: Coming from a Bluegrass background, I never had the opportunity to play electric music, I always listened to it and thought about being an electric bass player in a big loud country rock band because I love John Mellencamp as much as I do Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs, but I never thought I was capable of playing that kind of music. I thought I would be playing Bluegrass the rest of my life, but what we’re doing now feels really natural and I’m really happy – who knew that later in life I would learn that I am a rocker! (laughing)

Sixteen-year-old Zelena Hull began singing when she was ten years old. She quickly moved onto guitar and writing songs, tallying well over 300 so far. Mixing country and classic rock, Hull says, “I listen to all genres and my influences include artists from the Rolling Stones to Kansas.”

In December, Hull released her EP, 6 Feet Under which contains six songs all of which she wrote herself. Of the title track she says, “That song is about my struggle to stay happy and positive while getting through the rough spots.”

Other songs on the album include “Time” which Hull says was written about “People not knowing when to make their move whether realizing it is time to give up or move forward to something” and single “I Believe” which Hull wrote after her Dad told her a story about World War I. Hull explains, “When the Allies heard the Germans singing “Silent Night” they joined in and had a competition to see who could sing the loudest. They had kind of a truce where they also shared stories, buried one another’s dead, and played soccer. It was beautiful but, eventually the war continued.” Listen to the track HERE.

Hull is currently working on two brand new singles. For more information, visit her official website.
Find her on Facebook and Twitter

Founded in 1988 in memory of Eddy Merle Watson as a fundraiser for Wilkes Community College and to celebrate ‘traditional plus’ music, MerleFest brings MUSIC, MOMENTS and MEMORIES to  its 30th year in 2017. Held  on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina from April 27-30th, MerleFest, long regarded as one of the country's premier music festivals,  brings together varied and  well-regarded artists  including Chris Jones, who along with his band The Night Drivers, will be playing MerleFest this April. In advance of the festival, Jones kindly talked about what MerleFest  means to him,  his new album and more.

MerleFest is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. How many years have you been playing the festival?
This will be my second time. I enjoy MerleFest for its ability to bring high-quality and diverse artists to the stage, its focus on original music, songwriting contests, and heritage. As a Bluegrass band who plays original music, it’s really nice to be associated with this festival and as a Doc and Merle Watson fan, it means a lot to me personally to be involved.

Will you have the opportunity to take in other artists while you are there?
Definitely, especially with the quality of artists represented. There are artists there we don’t get to see very often and some I have never seen. I’m really hoping to catch Donna the Buffalo and the Kruger Brothers, both of whom are MerleFest regulars. I also have a fondness for fiddle music and am looking forward to seeing Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy. I’m also a big fan of Celtic music in general, so I hope to catch John Doyle, an Irish guitar I like very much. There’s just a really impressive lineup.

Southern rock & rollers The Pinx released their latest album, Freedom, in 2016. A culmination of attitude and creativity, the autobiographical album puts forth stories pulled from front man Adam McIntyre’s personal life and years spent as a touring musician. With Freedom having recently been released on red, white, and blue vinyl, McIntyre kindly checked in to talk about in depth about the album and much more.

Over the years, you have been involved with various bands, but now it seems the focus is firmly on The Pinx. When did the band get it start?
I have been with The Pinx for ten years now, but the current lineup got together only last year. So in a way, we’re a brand-new band with a new focus and a new way of doing things. Over the past few years, when I was a sideman for other bands like Stonerider, I figured some things out including the fact that I was really fucking around. I was writing ok songs and performing ok, but I was really limiting myself. The record is titled Freedom partly because it’s been my journey of late to figure out what I’ve been doing to hold myself back.
​
And what have you learned?
All I’ve been doing for the past eight or nine years now is trying to grow up and figure myself out and own my issues - and instead of that making the music boring I think it’s made it better. The old me would have written about characters in the 70’s and 80’s, but I remembered that one of the first things I learned in college and songwriting was to write what you know because people can tell when you’re bullshitting. When I was starting this album, I realized that over the past thirty years making music I acquired stories that were hilarious, sad, and interesting – and I wasn’t putting them in songs, I was telling them after shows while we were hanging. Ultimately, I wondered why I wasn’t writing about those experiences and making them into a record, so two years ago, I asked Stonerider for one day a week off to work on my own music. In that time, I was pulling from stories that took place over the last fifteen years. All of the songs on Freedom, except for the last one which is an MC5 cover, are all autobiographical, like “Boss Man” which is the embarrassing and gut-wrenching story of my first wedding night.

Released on February 3rd, award-winning British singer-songwriter  Jo Harman's  second studio album,  People We Become ,  is a personal story brought to life by  the warm sound of upright piano, electric guitar, and Harman's soulful voice. The album,  recorded in Nashville at Sound Emporium Studio  with producer  Fred Mollin,  contains   ten tracks including first single, "When We Were Young" which features rock legend  Michael McDonald. While on tour, Harman graciously took the time to  talk about  her roots, the album, and more by answering a few questions via email.
 
Since you are new to many American listeners, can you give a brief background as to how you came to pursue music professionally?
Even though I don't come from a particularly musical family I had a very musical childhood including playing violin, piano and bassoon (the latter to very good standard) as well as singing in school bands etc. To cut a very long story, very short, it took the death of my father (I was 22 at the time) to make me re-evaluate my ambitions and dreams and by the time I was 25 singing became a full time profession, and a couple of years later I realised the only thing that would make me truly happy was to be an originals artist, operating entirely on my own terms, which I have been ever since. 

You have a very soulful voice, did you begin singing in that style or did you have to, as many artists have told me, find your voice?
I guess I always had (relative) power and bluesy tones by dint of my natural physiology but phrasing and how to use my voice, in different ways, has developed year on year and I guess will forever be in development. I'm certainly very influenced by classic soul and gospel stylings, and black American music generally, in terms of the armoury I have at my disposal but I try not to simply be a copyist and, for one thing, I try to keep my natural English accent in sight too. 

Are there any particular artists you draw inspiration or influence from?
Many but Ella, Aretha, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, Mavis Staples, Joplin etc are all in there somewhere as I listened to a lot of that kind of music growing up. On the composition front I'm probably more influenced by my late Father's vinyl collection of classic English rock and singer-songwriters. In many ways the combination of the two elements (US black music and classic English rock from the 'golden age of music') have helped define my singular style and approach, perhaps. I'm told I make 'Jo Harman' records and I quite like the fact that they are thought of as signature records, with a signature voice, although everything I do just comes naturally and intuitively; nothing is over thought or engineered.

​Hailing from Houston, Charlie and The Regrets bring a unique Gulf Coast flavor to their music, blending  Country, Blues, and even infusing a some Cajun flair on their full-length debut Rivers in the Streets.  The nine tracks feature songs about real life and real issues dealing with situations with heart, humor, and sincerity. Front man Charlie Harrison  graciously too the time to speak about his  roots, the album, his beloved Houston and more.

Before we dive into the record, how did you come to form Charlie and The Regrets? Was music something you have been pursuing for a long time?
I’ve been playing music a long time. My first gig was in high school, and later, I played in bar bands when I went to UT Austin. After graduation, I worked as a stock broker – and was just terrible at it (laughing). So I quit, went back to school, worked a corporate gig, and eventually moved to the DC area with my wife. I put the music down for a while, but it was such a part of me I realized I couldn’t keep it down. So, in DC, I started to play out with a buddy in our band, Charlie and the Contraband. We were doing really well and gaining a following, but my wife and I decided to move back to Houston in late 2013/early 2014.

When I moved back, my brother hooked me up with Willy, our lap steel player, and little by little we pieced together the band. It can be a difficult thing to find a group of guys who think the same musically and get along and I know that I’m really lucky to go out every night and play with these guys who are top notch musicians [Mark Riddell, bass; Matt Stinson and Isaias Gil drums; John Shelton guitar]. I tell everyone it’s great to be the least talented guy in the band - and it’s true. Playing with them is not only fun, but it makes you want to be a better songwriter and musician.

On February 24th, the band released their first full-length, Rivers in the Streets. The songs on the record tell stories of real life that are both humorous and dark. As a co-writer on all of the tracks, where do you draw from?
Every song has a kernel of me in it, but I also pull from other places and write from a perspective that often times many people don’t think about. “The Gavel” is pulled from two news stories, one in Waco where the DA was trying to make an example out of a kid caught selling pot brownies and the other was the death of Ken Lay and how his record was expunged when he died because they said if he had lived, he could have had successful appeals. I thought it was funny how we pick and choose who we throw the book at and so here I was trying to write this social justice song and it came out more as a funny song about pot (laughing).

Jacob Davich is known to many for his roles in various Hollywood movies such as The Aviator, where he played a young Leonardo DiCaprio, and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl, but all the while he was acting, Jacob felt the pull of music. He immersed himself in piano and guitar and eventually decided to follow his passion and pursue music full-time. Recently, he released his debut  song, "My Father's Gun" and  kindly called to talk about his roots,  the song, and more.

You’ve been acting since you were a boy, but being that your Father was a composer, was music something that was always there for you or something that you recently became interested in?
Growing up around a working composer was really cool. My dad had a studio behind our house, so it was normal for me to walk to the studio, hang out, and watch the musicians do their thing. My Dad had me take piano lessons as a kid and as I got older, around 8th or 9th grade, I started playing the guitar. Before I picked up the guitar though, I randomly got my first commercial [for iTunes]. I was literally on the street and two girls were interviewing for a commercial; I rapped an Eminem song and I guess a little boy rapping Eminem was cute because I got the commercial. After that, I was spotted by Martin Scorsese or Leo DiCaprio and was cast as a young Leo in The Aviator. I continued acting, but was always playing the guitar and listening to various types of music like Rap and Classic Rock. In fact, the first two songs on my iPod were “Welcome to Atlanta” by Ludacris and Don McLean’s “American Pie” - that’s where my head was (laughing). Later, I got into James Taylor, whose finger picking style and chord formations I really liked. I had great guitar teaches, but if I wanted to learn something I was the meticulous nerd who looked up videos on YouTube and learned a song note for note until I could play it properly. Doing it that way increased my knowledge base and gave me a wide breath of songs I could play. I ate it [playing guitar] up, stayed with it, and over time music became more important than acting and I felt like I had no choice but to pursue it.

Shinyribs delivers a cure for what ails you on their exuberant fourth release, I Got Your Medicine. Tracked at the legendary Sugar Hill Recording Studios, the album unites humor, heart, and soul on a funktastic twelve track collection that will free you from your cares, touch your heart (and funny bone), move your body...and leave you with a huge grin on your face. Front man, lyricist, and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Russell graciously took the time to chat in depth about the album, which releases on February 24th,  and much more.

I Got Your Medicine is such an appropriate title for the album. It really is musical medicine for the soul. Why did you choose I Got Your Medicine, which is also a track on the album, as the title of the project?
Using it as the album title was Jimbo’s [Mathus, who co-produced the album] suggestion, he thought it was a great lead and title track and I agreed with him. “I Got Your Medicine” is my attempt at writing an Allan Toussaint song; it puts forth that New Orleans R & B groove, and really ties everything about the album together. Lyrically it works with all the other songs too, which is something I didn’t hear at first, but once Jimbo said that to me, I thought about it and listened to it with that in mind. You know, I’ve arranged and produced myself before, but I found that with Jimbo, I had someone who helped me make objective decisions because I tend to let my imagination wander and overthink things too much at times.

 With his previous singles, “Women, Water, And Beer” and “When The Fish Didn’t Bite” receiving critical praise, singer-songwriter Travis Rice recently released his new song, “Don’t Waste The Rain.” The tune, a romantic ballad, showcases a different side of the singer and demonstrates his  versatility as both a writer and performer. Shortly after its release, Rice kindly called to speak about the new single, its video, and more.

On January 13th, you released your new single, “Don’t Waste The Rain.” Did you write the song and can you tell the story behind it?
I wrote the song a couple of years ago and finally had the chance to record it last Fall. As far as the premise of the songs goes, well, if you’ve heard it, it’s pretty self-explanatory. My girl had to go to work on a stormy, rainy day and I’m trying to persuade her to come back home, get into bed, and enjoy one another’s company. You always hear the cliché of people saying not to waste the pretty, sunshine filled days and this song is the flip side of that where sometimes the time best spent is the time when you’re doing nothing and there are no distractions - you just have time to really soak  each other in and not waste a moment.