Reviews

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Welcome to the folking.com review section.

The folking review team is a small, dedicated group of people with a passion and a commitment for the folk, acoustic and Americana music scene. They review the latest releases, each in their own inimitable style…

All our reviewers give their spare time to bring you this resource and we always looking for new people to get involved who share a similar passion for the genre to help lighten the load. If that sounds like you, then please email us here for more information about joining the folking review team.

SINGLES BAR 90 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles

One half of the wonderfully named Canadian duo The Goddamsels, MALLORY CHIPMAN steps out solo for As Though I Had Wings (Tunnel Mountain), an EP which, featuring Jon Guenter on drums and both bassist Nico Humby and Esther Forseth on backing vocals, reflects her love of nature, and, specifically, birdcalls ...
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THE HACKLES – What A Beautiful Thing I Have Made (Jealous Butcher Records JB 223)

Trajectory - the Collins dictionary defines this as “The trajectory of a moving object is the path that it follows as it moves.”  It’s often applied to fast moving objects such as bullets or rockets. The Saturn Five rockets had three stages - the first lifting the crew about 42 ...
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TÍR NA NÓG – Love Lost (MIG Music MIG02942 CD)

Older readers will remember Sonny Condell and Leo O’Kelly, otherwise Tír na nÓg. For the young folk, Tír na nÓg formed in Dublin in 1969 and were big in the seventies but in a small way. An acoustic duo, Sonny and Leo never followed Tyrannosaurus Rex and Medicine Head into ...
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CAMUS – Out On The Spree (Old Windmill Records – OWR001)

Out On The Spree is the first full album Camus have released in several years, and only the fourth since the band was formed in the 1980s. Prolific they might not be, but this album suggests that while their recorded output might lack quantity, it’s certainly not lacking in quality ...
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MAGGIE HOLLAND – The Dust Of Rage (Irregular Records IRR126)

When I first moved to this area I set out to find the local folk scene, which was not as easy then as it is now. The guests at the first club I found were Hot Vultures – Ian A Anderson and Maggie Holland – and that was the first ...
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ADY SHAW – Light & Dark (Piper Moon Records)

Ady Shaw may not be a familiar name to many. He made his musical debut more than half a century ago and has been making music ever since while teaching art to earn his living. He moved from dance music to singer-songwriter and has spent the past few years performing ...
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BRUCE COCKBURN – O Sun O Moon (True North Records)

Bruce Cockburn once sang, “The trouble with normal is it always gets worse”.  But that’s simply not true for his new album, O Sun O Moon, because it is, indeed, a quite “normal” BC album – with brilliant songwriting, idiosyncratic and profound lyricism, a modern universal blues vibe, dexterous acoustic ...
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BROOMDASHER – Ingrave Epiphany (Clean Sweep CS0122)

Following on from their Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady project and released to coincide with their From Pub To Pulpit tour with Coracle and the choirs and organists of assorted churches and cathedrals celebrating Vaughan Williams' 150th birthday and the music he transformed from folk songs into hymns, Ingrave ...
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DROPKICK MURPHYS – Okemah Rising (Dummy Luck DLM003LP)

Following on from This Machine Still Kills Fascists, Okemah Rising, the second collection of songs recorded in Tulsa featuring unpublished lyrics by Woody Guthrie they’ve set to music and again with his grandson Cole Quest on dobro and backing vocals, it rolls out with rolling military drums and Tim Brennan’s ...
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TERRY EMM – Wish You Were Here (Azez Records/Shellshock)

Terry Emm’s Wish You Were Here is a return, after a seven-year hiatus, with an introspective, melodically addictive, and really nice folk album. Now, perhaps, Ralph McTell summed the soul of all the singer-songwriters with the words from his song, ‘Zimmerman Blues’ as he sang, “As sure as the stars ...
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HANNAH ROSE PLATT – Deathbed Confessions (Xtra Mile Recording)

Hannah Rose Platt’s music extolls the peculiar enjoyment of buttered popcorn and a hammer horror film marathon. Her new album, Deathbed Confessions, which comes all the way from her native Liverpool and her new home in Bristol, is filled with “shadowy characters, spooky destinations, and surreal narratives”. And Hannah braves ...
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ELLI DE MON – Pagan Blues (Area Pirata Records AP096)

Musician and songwriter Elli de Mon presented Pagan Blues in late April, two years after capturing the attention of audiences throughout Europe and beyond with her previous album, Countin’ The Blues. Brash, bold, and unwavering in its intent, de Mon’s most recent effort is a decidedly unnerving affair, perhaps intentionally ...
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GREG ISTOCK – Mr Greg Mr Jones (Blue Gate Records)

Greg Istock releases Mr Greg Mr Jones on May 3rd. Istock has a pedigree to match the best: band leader, singer, songwriter (all the tracks on this album), producer, arranger, self-taught multi-instrumentalist. He has worked in bands across all genres, co-created the sound of 3hattrio and now has this solo ...
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UNA MONAGHAN – Aonaracht (own label UMM002CD)

Aonaracht is an album that will divide opinion. The strapline on the sleeve – ‘a collection for traditional musicians and computer’ – is probably enough to make some traditionalists give up on it, but hasty judgments are always best avoided. A fuller reading of the sleeve notes and publicity material ...
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KRIS DREVER – The Best Of Kris Drever (Reveal Records)

The Best of Kris Drever is a collection of the Scottish singer-songwriter’s “Love of our land’s sacred rights”, as indeed, these songs sing with the deep Alban soul that touches the music of Robert Burns, Tony Cuffe (of Ossian fame!), Dick Gaughan, Andy M. Stewart, Dougie MacLean, Jim Malcolm, those ...
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JON WILKS – Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost (own label)       

His fourth solo album sees Jon Wilks step away from the Birmingham-derived songs that were the mainstays of his last two releases and embrace those from which he’s drawn strength and inspiration during the recent difficult years, a period in which he fell seriously ill, having to spend three months ...
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CAESAR SPENCER – Get Out Into Yourself (New Radio Records)

Caesar Spencer’s Get Out Into Yourself is an album whose press release says, “with a loose narrative that follows a protagonist journeying through different cultural landscapes, it unspools a tale laced with existential questions and the quest to find yourself in an ever-shifting world”. Now, for the three or so ...
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OPEN ROAD – Skylark (Delfina Records DR428-OR01)

A duo comprising San Francisco native Lucia Comnes, now based in Italy, and West Coast songwriter John Palmer, Skylark is their debut release and brings together a mix of originals and covers, opening with the guitar driving, fiddle-backed co-write Southern gothic folk ‘No Hiding Place’, Comnes singing lead on an ...
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SIMON MAYOR – Carolan (Acoustics CDACS 082)

Simon Mayor’s Carolan album was due for release on March 10 2023, but somehow or other the link found its way into my spam folder, so I’ve only just got to hear it. Carolan is subtitled Fantasias On Themes By Turlough O’Carolan, and if you know both Simon Mayor’s work ...
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SINGLES BAR 89 – A round-up of recent EPs and singles

The daughter of Peter Lewis, founding member of 60s psych-folk icons Moby Grape (and who features on Stratocaster), and granddaughter of Oscar-winning actress Loretta Young, ARWEN LEWIS comes with an impressive lineage, However, her new six-track EP Under The Stars (OMAD Records) is evidence that she doesn’t need to cite ...
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NOW VOYAGERS – The Best Of All Possible Worlds (own label)

Music can work on so many different levels and The Best Of All Possible Worlds, a concept album by Bath based musician Now Voyagers (Kim Green) does exactly that. You can play to it as a charming album of very good music, or you can study it and get so ...
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LEVERET – Forms (LEVCD06)

Leveret – namely folk virtuoso fiddle player extraordinaire Sam Sweeney, concertina maestro Rob Harbron and magic melodeon player Andy Cutting are celebrating 10 years together with their latest album out 21st April 2023 entitled Forms. All three members of Leveret have an impressive list of legends they have accompanied such ...
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DEL BARBER – Almanac (Acronym)

Eight albums in, the latest from the Canadian singer-songwriter takes its title from the idea of a guide to where you should be heading and what you might expect. As such, Almanac opens with the pedal steel lazing flow of ‘Something To Say’, a song about resisting the temptation to ...
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ÍMAR – Awakening (BMANN005)

As often happens in folk music familiar faces will turn up in different combinations and that's the case with Glasgow based Ímar. Ryan Murphy (Mànran), Tomás Callister and Adam Rhodes (Mec Lir), Mohsen Amini (Talisk) and Adam Brown (RURA) originally met as teenagers through the Irish traditional music network Comhaltas ...
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MATTHEWS SOUTHERN COMFORT – The Woodstock Album: 15 Songs of Peace, Love and Understanding  (Must Have Records MHCD 114)

It’s 23 years since Iain Matthews topped the charts with his cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ and he returns to the iconic festival now with The Woodstock Album, a covers concept album on which he and the band reinterpret songs from several of the artists who were on the bill.  ...
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GNOSS – Stretching Skyward (BFLY05CD)

Gnoss are a Scottish quartet, nominated three time for the Scot Trad Awards, who have their own distinct view of what traditional folk music is. Orcadians Aidan Moodie (vocals, guitar), and Graham Rorie (fiddle, mandolin and electric guitar) are joined by mainlanders Connor Sinclair (flute, whistle) and Craig Baxter (bodhran, ...
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JOE HENRY – All The Eye Can See (Earmusic)

Joe Henry, with his new album All The Eye Can See, continues to write brand new sonic and quite secular scripture verse. And, with this secluded pandemic recording, he finds (metaphorically speaking!) the wind-swept simplicity of melodic words left in a gnostic cave of long-lost mystical thought. And that’s a ...
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THE MADELEINE STEWART TRIO – The Madeleine Stewart Trio (own label MSTCD01)

There are some very talented alumni from the traditional music course at The Royal Scottish Conservatoire currently active in the thriving Glasgow folk scene. It’s no surprise then, that this eponymous debut from The Madeleine Stewart Trio, features three of them. What sets Madeleine herself apart, is that she travelled ...
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LUCY FARRELL – We Are Only Sound (Hudson)

Born in Kent and now based in Canada, Farrell is probably better known for her contributions to the work of others, both live and in the studio, having lent her guitar, fiddle, viola and voice to such names as Chris Cleverley, Eliza Carthy and the Wayward Band, MG Boulter (who ...
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EWAN MACINTYRE – Twenty First Century Fool (Broken Car Recordz BCR-005)

Twenty First Century Fool is the fourth solo album by Ewan Macintyre since his departure from Southern Tenant Folk Union, recorded in Montreal with a group of Quebecois musicians and completed on the Isle Of Skye. It marks Ewan’s first writing in Gaelic and is clearly a product of lockdown: ...
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DAVID HOWLEY – For Venus (own label)

Born in Ireland and the founder member of We Banjo 3, Howley is a prodigious exponent of Irish folk and has performed alongside such diverse names as The Chieftains, Mumford & Sons, Altan and Billy Strings. Surprisingly though, For Venus is his first solo album, he taking charge of acoustic and ...
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ALICE HOWE – Circumstance (KnowHowe KH0003)

Born in Massachusetts, Howe already has two impressive releases to her name but Circumstance, with its cocktail of southern rock, country, folk, classic soul and blues, produced and mostly co-written by Freebo, who also plays fretless bass, could be the one to propel to the next level. Recorded in Muscle ...
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BEAU – Kingdom Of The Blind (Cherry Red BEAUKOTB1)

I’ve said it before and will inevitably say it again, Beau is a refreshing throwback to the 60s when political and social satire was afforded UK mainstream television slots, long before the more crass efforts of Spitting Image, and each week the troubadour of choice would deliver some pointed barb ...
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GEORGE SANSOME & MATT QUINN – Sheffield Park (Grimdon Records GRICD007)

It seems that English folkies are taking a leaf out of their Scottish counterparts’ book by swapping musical partners like a barn dance’s introductory mixer. For fans it means more and different music and we can all applaud that. The latest pairing matches Granny’s Attic’s George Sansome and Dovetail Trio’s ...
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TRAPPER SCHOEPP – Siren Songs (Grand Phony)

Trapper Schoepp releases Siren Songs on April 21st. Schoepp said of it, “What’s most important to me is to be a link in the chain of folk singers before and after my time”. To mention a couple: the album was recorded at Cash Cabin, originally Johnny Cash’s sanctuary to recharge, ...
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YOUNG MARTYRS – Time Is Not On Our Side (own label)

Flying the Bristol flag for UK Americana, comprising frontman Tom Corneill, lead guitarist Simon Whitehead with Lee Cole and Rich Beeby providing the rhythm section, Time Is Not On Our Side is Young Martyrs second album, opening with the chiming sounds of ‘Let Me Know’, the song addressed to a ...
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JAMES KERRY – Source (own label JK2022CD)

In the ordinary way of things I’m not a great fan of the melodeon. It’s fine for dancing where it can maintain a steady rhythm as well as providing a melody. But too many players confuse it with a musical instrument and that’s where it all goes wrong for me ...
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ANGUS McOG – Cirrus (Gare Du Nord Records)

With his new album, Cirrus, Angus McOg (aka Italian folk singer Antonio Tavoni) paints with a brush stroke melodic beauty that could, perhaps, soundtrack the Degas painting, Rehearsal Of The Ballet Backstage. There’s piano taut tension, an introspective thought, an artistic blood pulse, sleight hesitation, an impressionistic blur -- all ...
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GERAINT WATKINS – Aide-memoire (Last Music Co LMCD233)

A name that will be very familiar to anyone who peruses album credits, Watkins has played piano, accordion and guitar for a wealth of famous names, serving as sideman to the likes of McCartney, Lowe, Daltrey, Knopfler, Morrison, Edmunds and Gallagher. What is perhaps less well-known is that he also ...
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DAN WHITEHOUSE – Reflections On The Glass Age (own label WTK005)

Following his ground-breaking album, Dan Whitehouse is now going on the road with Reflections On The Glass Age, a stripped down acoustic version of The Glass Age. Away from the electronica of the original, Dan sticks to acoustic guitar and is supported by Gustaf Ljunggren on piano and Billie Maree ...
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CARTER SAMPSON – Gold (Horton)

Joined by frequent collaborator, Kyle Reid who contributes pedal steel, guitar and synths among other instruments, Oklahoma-songbird Sampson again taps into her heartland country roots for an album that balances piercing balladeering poignancy with punchier rootsy rock. Pedal steel sounds the opening notes of the title track, ‘Gold’, a roots ...
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O’HOOLEY & TIDOW – Cloudheads (No Masters NMCD57)

The past few years have been eventful ones for Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow with the ballyhoo surrounding Gentleman Jack and then the arrival of a curly-haired sprog who is just about entering the “interesting” stage, I reckon. In fact, young Flynn is responsible, although mostly indirectly, for much of ...
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UNCLE BARD & THE DIRTY BASTARDS – These Are The Days (Live) (SFMCD565)

You heard the new album by Uncle Bard &  The Dirty Bastards? Who!!!? Uncle Bard & The Dirty Bastards – it’s a belter. Punk Music, I take it with a name like that? If that’s their band name, I bet the album’s called, ‘Never Mind the Marriages’? A little less ...
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NATALIE MACMASTER & DONNELL LEAHY – Canvas (Linus Entertainment 270787)

Two of the world's top Celtic fiddle players and known as Canada’s reigning stars of Celtic music– husband and wife team Donnell Leahy and Natalie MacMaster have recently released their third album together entitled Canvas. (Their cumulative album sales have topped one million and have sell out live performances across ...
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HACK-POETS GUILD – Blackletter Garland (Oli Records TPLP1690CD)

Once in while a record comes along and leaves you speechless which is how I was when I first played Blackletter Garland. Let’s start with some facts. Hack-Poets Guild are Marry Waterson, Lisa Knapp and Nathaniel Mann supported by Barney Morse-Brown, Lawrence Hunt, Pete Flood, Meraud Fergerson and Gerry Diver ...
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ROBBIE CUMMING – Choons Vol 1 & 2 (KWSBCM19CD)

Robbie Cumming. You might not instantly recognise the name, particularly in the context of music. However, even for someone watching as little TV as I do, Cumming is recognisable as the man who has created a wonderful BBC4 show Canal Boat Diaries, tales of the canal on the ‘Naughty Lass’ ...
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SARAH–JANE SUMMERS & JUHANI SILVOLA – Sølvstrøk (Heilo HCD7384)

Sølvstrøk (Silverstroke) is an ambitious album. Sarah-Jane Summers and Juhani Silvola are already a widely acclaimed duo, but Sarah-Jane has long dreamed of ‘super sizing’ their music to an orchestral level. Seeing a performance by Oslo Chamber Orchestra led to Sarah-Jane and Juhani writing for and playing with them. From ...
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THE YOUNG’UNS – Tiny Notes (Hudson Records HUD036CD)

It has been mentioned that The Young’Uns are outgrowing their name. After all, it’s twenty years since they discovered folk music in the back room of a pub in Stockton-on-Tees and, while they are not yet elder statesmen, they have amassed an impressive body of work and gained a certain ...
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THE CURSE OF K K HAMMOND – Death Roll Blues (KKHCD001)

I like it when an album title tells you exactly what you're going to get. With a title like Death Roll Blues you know that it won't be clapping along and joining the sing-a-long choruses.  Instead what you get is an incredible collection of modern blues inspired by old-time Delta ...
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MELISSA RUTH – Bones (no label details)

Replete with Americana tinged instrumentation and lyrics coloured by vast historical context, singer, songwriter, and music educator Melissa Ruth’s latest effort, Bones, take listeners on an explorative journey through what Ruth herself describes as North-Country Western music. In spite of the singer’s own northern roots, the arrangements and songwriting throughout Bones ...
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RACHEL BAIMAN – Common Nation Of Sorrow (Signature Sounds SIG-CD-2144)

As the title would suggest, coloured by her bluegrass roots, Baiman’s third album, Common Nation Of Sorrow, is often rooted in a commentary on contemporary America, the oppressed and dispossessed united in their sufferings and the burden of economic tyranny, though such themes very readily translate beyond her native shores ...
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REG MEUROSS – Stolen From God (Hatsongs Records HAT025)

Stolen From God is an album that a lot of us have been looking forward to for a long while. Reg Meuross has taken up his narrative style again to bring us a song cycle telling the story of the transatlantic slave trade. In support, Reg has recruited Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, ...
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CRUEL FOLK – Far To Fall (Cruelfolk002)

There is an England old and merry, sunny and glorious where Englande and olde have an ‘e’ on the end of them, where merrie has an ‘ie’ at the end of it. This is the Englande of our dreams. It’s sunlit, it’s blue skies. It may be winter but it’s ...
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MICHAEL JOHNATHON – Garden Of Silence (PoetMan Records PMR70034)

Incredibly prolific, Johnathon has released a previous twenty-one albums, with one a year since 2012, published five books, a play, composed an opera, regularly performs with symphony orchestras, produces and writes a syndicated radio show and has created three volunteer organisations. Garden Of Silence, his latest, returns him to one ...
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MULL HISTORICAL SOCIETY – Archaeology: Complete Recordings 2000-2004 (Demon Records)

Mull Historical Society’s four-disc Archaeology: Complete Recordings 2000—2004 proves that while “Daddy takes the T-bird away” every once in a while, there’s still quite a bit of “fun, fun, fun” to be found in the grooves of pop music that blends rock, folk, psych, crazy electric sounds, and really great ...
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THE BLUE HIGHWAYS – Out On The Line (own label)

The Blue Highways release Out On The Line on March 31st. One of the lines in ‘Nobody Lives Here Any More’ (below) is “Rules are made to be broken”. So…to start where I’d usually finish: The Blue Highways are on tour at the end of March and April – and ...
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ANDREW GABBARD – Cedar City Sweetheart (Colemine Records)

Andrew Gabbard’s Cedar City Sweetheart proves there’s always room for yet another melodic pedal guitar infused Rodeo Sweetheart record that oozes Neil Young, The Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, (bits of) Seatrain, Country Gazette, and countless other bands that drank from the downhome stilled magical brew the folky 70’s elixir. Sometimes, ...
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ANDY HEDGES – Roll On, Cowboys (Andy Hedges)

Let me admit, I’m not exactly steeped in the cowboy songs idiom, though I certainly trawled through some collections by the Lomaxes et al. at the start of my own so-called-singing career. But when I saw the Andy Hedges album Roll On, Cowboys, due for release on March 26 2023, ...
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MEGSON – What Are We Trying To Say? (EDJ Records EDJ033)

It’s four years since we last heard from Megson, which is too long but we all know what happened in the interim. What Are We Trying To Say? is their thirteenth album and, as before, they are supported by John Parker on double. All the rest: writing, playing, singing and ...
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DAVID HARLEY – So Sound You Sleep (ISBN 979-8377897699)

Apart from saying, “As you’ll see from his website, David Harley is a Shropshire lad, now living in Cornwall, who has played guitar since the 1970’s”  I won’t give any further introduction – check out David’s website or the folking.com review of Introduction to Nashville Tuning for Guitar: https://folking.com/david-harley-introduction-to-nashville-tuning-for-guitar-weald-alice-music/ David ...
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