Lawrence.com

In what's quickly become an annual tradition, three of Lawrence's premier string bands skewer holiday musics past and present. If you like bluegrass, you already know about local phenoms The Wilders. If you're pretty sure you don't like bluegrass, this is truly one band that could make you a quick convert. These Walnut Valley Festival favorites have the ability to set a stage aflame in a jiffy with fiddle numbers and hot doses of formative-years country (Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Carter Family). They also write some mean tunes of their own on their latest disc "Someone's Got to Pay."The Midday Ramblers favor the golden-era bluegrass songbook (Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Ralph Stanley) but are no less capable of getting a crowd hootin' and hollerin' and slappin' a little ass. The Ramblers serve it up in the old Opry format: one mic, nice suits, smooth harmonies and zero cussin.' Besides their unique interpretations of traditional faves like "John Hardy" and "Katy Cline," the band plays a number of originals and some instrumentals that walk the line between oldgrass and newgrass.Drakkar Sauna's new album "Wars & Tornadoes" is a collection of Louvin Brothers covers. Songs of old-timey despair and redemption from the '40s and '50s by a couple of siblings who were torn apart by alcoholism never sounded so toe tappin'.