With the success of jamfests such as Bonnaroo, roots-music gatherings continue to dot the countryside like mushrooms after a summer rain. Now the Denver area boasts its own Woodstock-inspired revel, in nearby Strasburg. Stir Fried (featuring pedal-steel master Buddy Cage) and the venerable David Nelson Band will headline May Daze…

At a relatively young 37, Tab Benoit makes a strong case that white men can jump — or at least bend a blue note with conviction. On his latest effort, Fever for the Bayou, Benoit, who hails from the Louisiana delta, shakes, rattles and rolls through a tasty blend of…

While difficult to hang a genre on this coaster, it’s hard not to like the musical product of James Brown axman Damon Wood and company. Wood struts his road-tested guitar stuff on Space Cadet and demonstrates creative songwriting ability from track to track, weaving funk, blues, reggae, soul and psychedelia…

Long before the noodle-ocity of Phish reigned supreme, there was the Fish Head music of the Radiators. In the tradition of the Funky Meters, Little Feat, Allen Toussaint, Earl King and numerous other talented veterans of the Big Easy scene, the Radz emerged from the bayou in 1978 and have…

Despite solid songwriting, burning fretwork, deep grooves and an earnestly dark outlook, Warren Haynes and company can’t seem to achieve liftoff on Voodoo, the group’s first studio release since the loss of bassist Allen Woody. The retooled four-piece, which puts on intriguing live performances, serves up a mostly lackluster collection…

Getting ahold of Warren Haynes is tricky. Understandably, he likes to keep a low profile. For the past few years he’s been touring pretty much non-stop, playing leap-frog between the current incarnations of the Allman Brothers and the Dead, not to mention fronting his own band, Gov’t Mule. Such a…

A live, acoustic-leaning doughnut from the same series of shows that birthed the recently released Night of Joy, Über Cobra reminds us why the Panic came on the radar in the first place. The first two tracks, a bubbling take on Neil Young’s “Walk On” and the band’s own “Wonderin’,”…

Live at Bonnaroo is one man, one voice, one amplified acoustic guitar and tens of thousands of festival revelers in a big field in Tennessee. Having played with several groups at last year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival, Haynes, one of the busiest guys on the roots-music scene, managed to break from…

On his latest CD, former Boulder-dwelling, banjo-plucking jam-grasser Tony Furtado (due at Trilogy in Boulder on Friday, August 6), now a resident of Los Angeles, highlights a newfound joy in songwriting; his own singing voice is another welcome addition. Produced by Dusty Wakeman (Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam), These Chains comprises…

Heavy metal and bluegrass go together like angry steelworkers and precious little cucumber finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Nonetheless, the acoustic pluckers in Alabama’s Iron Horse take on the music of Metallica, to middling results. No doubt this horse knows its way around a dobro, a mando, a…

Among the most popular heirs to the throne of scruff music, Widespread Panic has the uncanny power to pack venues (to the point of bursting) full of faithful, doped-up and ecstatic road warriors. With a little darker vibe than its musical forebears, the Grateful Dead, the band is led vocally…

Touring with the Godfather of Soul can get a little heady. One minute you’re at the Apollo in New York, and the next you’re performing in such far-flung locales as Turkey, Greece or the Caribbean. Yet for Damon Wood, who plays guitar in James Brown’s band and fronts his own…

Those who’ve followed Van Morrison faithfully through his myriad solo releases and collaborations know that he’s put out a handful of towering monuments as well as some relative dogs. His latest release features many of the classic elements he’s doled out over the years: jazz- and blues-inflected power vocals, thoughtful,…

While perhaps not breaking a whole lot of new musical ground, these local jam bozos are dedicated to playing as much psychedelic-inspired fare as humanly possible, which is laudable for a bunch of aging working stiffs trying to make good — or at the very least trying to forget about…

It’s a Tuesday night at Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey, a cozy jazz club on Colfax Avenue. A handful of people sit on overstuffed couches listening devoutly to Dave Cieri and the Arms and Legs Quartet as the ensemble finesses its way through a set comprising jazz standards and improvisational departures. Nobody…

Concept albums can be a dicey proposition for a young group. But once an act has established itself as a top-of-the-heap bluegrass-influenced jam band and has already released a few true-to-its-roots platters — not to mention live shows that draw a gaggle of free-spirited, granola-munching souls — well, what the…

Chronophonic, a talented collective composed mainly of music majors from a variety of local academies, is living proof that Denver does have vital, contemporary-jazz-influenced music. The band colors outside the box on its debut, incorporating funk, world rhythms, hip-hop beats and soul-soaked vocals. Edging toward the acid-jazz tag on these…

Combining top-shelf acoustic playing with an angling theme, Fishing Music: A Collection of Acoustic Folk, Blues & Swing is a platter that plays well in warm-weather months. Producers Ben Winship and David Thompson assembled some of the masters of Americana to extol the simple delights of grabbing a pole and…

The cover of Kreg Viesselman’s eponymous disc implores you to listen. It’s vaguely reminiscent of those old Van Morrison albums, on which the soulful Irishman would sport a fisherman’s sweater, brown corduroys and shaggy mutton chops while wistfully contemplating a drooping apple tree through a mist and clutching a timeworn…

At one point not too long ago, the population of the Front Range expanded. Tech complexes and subdivisions consumed open space, while McMansions replaced ponderosa pines as the tallest species in the foothills. Evergreens and pristine land morphed into what newspapers morbidly dubbed “Sprawlorado.” Mark Merryman is one long-suffering Colorado…

Elegant though not pretentious, inviting but not desperate, this beguiling pair of discs from Jessica Williams and Bruce Barth make for fine listening. While offering multiple-track releases of mostly piano-driven fare might constitute a potentially disastrous goal from a financial point of view, both Barth and Williams carry their respective…

Blending jazz, bluegrass, funk and even a little worldbeat, Matt Flinner — mandolin virtuoso and former Leftover Salmon tour guest — and company take dawg-style music (think David Grisman Quintet) to the next level. The ensemble, which appears at Quixote’s True Blue on Friday, April 4, is composed of Flinner,…