Rural sound, urban setting: Roots music grabs NYC

"New York has lately become remarkably hospitable to musicians upholding more rustic ideals." than the "indie-rock upstarts, jazz improvisers and hip-hop survivors" for which it is more commonly known, Nate Chinen reports in The New York Times. He notes that the city has some history with bluegrass and other "roots music," such as the folk revival of the late 1950s, "but there has also been help from a couple of fairly recent surprise hits in the pop mainstream: the Appalachian-steeped soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Come Away With Me,” Norah Jones’s folk-pop debut. Both albums were game-changers, creating new opportunities and fan bases for bluegrass pickers and singer-songwriters."

Here's the booking that made us tingle and smile: Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys March 16 at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill. If you can't make that one, make a note: Guitarist Michael Daves, right, "leads a popular jam session at the Parkside Lounge on the first Monday of every month," Chinen notes. For more on bluegrass in the Big Apple, go to nycbluegrass.com. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Daves, an Atlanta native who moved to Brooklyn five years ago, told Chinen that he finds the New York area liberating. “Bluegrass audiences in New York don’t have the same rigid expectations for the music that you find in the South,” he said. “People here don’t have those deeply ingrained perceptions of the music. I can say, ‘I think bluegrass is this iconoclastic, messy, raucous thing.’ And people are like: ‘O.K. Sure, sounds good.’ ” (Read more)