The Asheville Mountain Boys’ self-titled debut album drops on Feb. 12, heralding the arrival of a new era of old-school bluegrass from the Buncombe County quartet. 

Recorded at The Shop Studio with master bluegrass engineer Van Atkins (Doyle Lawson, Balsam Range, Town Mountain), the record blends heartfelt originals about love and loss with a hand-picked selection of bluegrass standards and deep cuts from the catalogs of the band’s musical heroes. 

Whirlwind. Virtuoso. Rollicking. Heartfelt.

Those were some of the sentiments I had ricocheting around my mind watching Bronwyn Keith-Hynes perform earlier this winter at The Orange Peel in Asheville. A renowned fiddler/singer, Keith-Hynes is headlong into a solo career with the recent disbanding of her former band, the Grammy-winning Americana/bluegrass act Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway. 

It’s been 20 years since the inception of The Infamous Stringdusters, the Grammy-winning string act whose tone and swagger encompasses an acoustic majesty coupled with a full-blown rock show attitude. 

“When you’ve been a band for 20 years, a lot of things change, including your perspective on how to create music and art,” said dobroist Andy Hall.

At age 66, legendary singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott is having a career rebirth of sorts. 

Though he’s always been known as a prolific and productive artist — whether in Nashville musical circles as a performer and producer or through endless touring from coast-to-coast and beyond — this current chapter of his storied life has evolved into a full-circle kind of thing, one where Scott is reevaluating just what it means to create and cultivate in your autumn years. 

Normally, when I’m interviewing storied Haywood County musician Darren Nicholson, we’d be talking either about an upcoming gig of his or a new album coming down the pipeline. But, today, we’re talking all things Christmas trees. 

“Well, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Nicholson tells me when I ask him about how to pick out the perfect tree for the holidays.

In what will amount to an early Christmas present for bluegrass pickers and music lovers across Western North Carolina and beyond, there’s a brand-new album from the late Carroll Best. 

“What he did with the banjo was above and beyond,” said French Kirkpatrick, a Haywood County musician, who was part of The White Oak String Band with Best. “He was, probably without a doubt, the most creative banjo player I was ever in a room with.” 

Since its inception in 2014, Asheville-based Fireside Collective has evolved from a ragtag bluegrass act into one of the rising stars in the jam-grass and greater psychedelic music scene in Southern Appalachia and beyond. 

Hello from Room 304 at the Delta Hotel in Bristol, Virginia. Sitting here at the desk, I can hear the hustle and bustle of nearby Interstate 81. Right outside my window, the howling of tractor-trailers zooming by into the unknown night, either heading south over border into Tennessee or the depths of the Shenandoah Valley going north. 

Whether you are an expert in folk music or if you can’t tell a banjo from a mandolin, a new biography, “Doc Watson: A Life in Music,” by Eddie Huffman, will draw you in. Along the way you’ll discover not just Doc’s story, but the rich history of our state and the impact of its traditional music. 

Not far from the tiny town of Floyd, Virginia, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, is the childhood home of The Wildmans. The sibling duo is currently navigating the release of their debut album, “Longtime Friend,” for New West Records. And today truly feels like a full circle moment.