Tara Nevins Multi-instrumentalist and singer Tara Nevins, a founding member of Donna the Buffalo, has such an earthy sense of American roots music that she can transport listeners to the hills and backwoods of Appalachia simply with her plaintive, right-off-the-front porch voice. Nevins' recent album, Wood and Stone, evokes a by-gone era, though it's also hauntingly fresh enough to sweep up a few more believers. The record, her first solo outing since 1999, is for Nevins a personal, autobiographical work, and for the listener a country-folk gem stitched with touches of Cajun. Her fiddle- and guitar-playing and singing is heartening for those who love traditional music of the South, whether it is lingering in the fields, playing in the rural hinterlands, or visiting its expanding metropolitan areas.
— Samir Shukla