Featured Blog Posts – January 2011 Archive (53)

New Album & Tour Dates in London and Europe

www.drewnelson.net

   This cd, available through Drew's website I believe, is one heck of a coup for modern technology and for Rob Ellen's Medicine Show. As recorded on Rob's little machine (was it hanging from a coat peg?) the quality is plenty good enough - a…

www.brothermarkmusic.com

The M. stands for Mark but with two other Mark Lucas musicians out there this particular Mark has launched his solo career under a simple M.  Born in Kentucky, he has been surrounded by traditional music all his life, latterly earning his keep in a folk duo and then in roots group Billyblues.…

FTB podcast #104  features the new album by LORI McKENNA called Lorraine.  Also music from TERN ROUNDERS,  HAUNTED HEARTS and the late CHARLIE LOUVIN.  The full playlist is posted below.  Check the artist's websites and order their CD's or…

www.bradboyermusic.com

Americana singer-songwriters are fast becoming two-a-penny but there are still exceptions to the rule. One such case is Texas act Brad Boyer who with his easy on the ear, meaningful songs bucks the trend.

A finalist last year at the at Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk category Boyer debuts with an album produced by well-known…

www.reverbnation.com/theskunnered

The Skunnered are four guys from Glasgow playing their own unique blend of easy rocking country and Scots folk song, with a dollop of Glasgow street song in there for good measure and all sung in their native accent. There's a wry humour at work in the very construction of…

Charlie Louvin, half of the Louvin Brothers whose harmonies inspired fellow country and pop singers for decades, died early Wednesday morning, due to complications from pancreatic cancer.…

www.jakemorley.com

Londoner Jake Morley is a one-off, making sounds and writing songs that sound like no-one else I've ever heard. If it wasn't pretty much an acoustic album I would characterise "Many Fish To Fry" as a pop album: this is bright, sparkly music, easy to engage with and…

www.elliottbrood.ca

Elliott Brood are a three piece  from Toronto who play electrified folk-based music with punkish energy and intensity. The guys treat their collective identity as a character in his own right but I have to say I can't quite grasp how this informs their creative process -…

www.jp-den-tex.com      

That'll be JP "The Texan" as this boy hails from Amsterdam. I say "boy", but, coyly disguising his age with a woolly hat though he does, JP must be in his fifties if he's a day. It's a long musical career that's led to this point, playing several…

The Mighty Orq will soon be packing his bags and making the trek to Memphis Tennessee where he will compete in the finals of the  …

 High quality work, this, from Toronto based Cris Cuddy. A man who's kept a musical career going on several fronts over many years keeps it largely acoustic on this particular album. In doing so he still manages to cover a fair old stylistic range; "I'm A Cadillac" is a slow-burn blues-rock number that could almost be John Hiatt whilst the song that immediately follows it, "Hey Mr Bartender", sounds much more like Jimmy Dale…

www.bobreamusic.com

 Bob Rea hails from Durango, Colorado and has spent his life stumbling amongst the foothills of The American Dream; he's worked at several sorts of job, fallen foul of the law, struggled to raise his family and somehow survived it all with enough self-respect intact to be able to document this kind of life in song. There are hordes of people…

Mary Chapin Carpenter – The Age of Miracles



Following 2008’s stunning Christmas release Come Darkness, Come Light, comes The Age of Miracles. Quieter and more subdued than some of Chapin’s earlier work, but achingly beautiful, these songs quite simply speak to your soul with repeated listens; more in the ilk of her much loved Stones in the…

James Clark Jones - Dispatch From Purgatory

Tracks: 9

Self released – 2009

http://www.jamesclarkjones.com/





Self-released in 2009, I was new to this 9 track collection of songs from Toronto native James Clark Jones, despite it actually being his third release. The first thing to…

www.katerusby.com

Two years after Sweet Bells, the critically acclaimed Christmas release, Make the Light is Kate Rusby’s first CD comprised entirely of self penned songs. Somewhat randomly it was Jennifer…

When L.A.'s Paisley pop psychedelia channeling Anny Celsi (pronounced Chelsea) landed at Heathrow 15th April last year , at the start of her "Tangle Free", European Tour , it was on the day the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano struck…

Duke Lang http://www.myspace.com/dukelang



Canada native, Duke Lang, has some songs on his myspace (Doug Lang) that anyone can listen to. However, I was lucky that he offered me the opportunity to hear the pre release copies of his two CDs – The Norway Sessions Volume I and II – Crooked and Troubador, which contain 14 and 12 tracks, respectively.

All of…