Featured Blog Posts – August 2011 Archive (31)

Veteran Trinidadian band Jointpop are back on UK shores in September and October.  They are a group who deliver "Clash style rants to Velvet-like laid back grooves with Dylanesque lyrics".  Their influences from Bob Marley to The Sex Pistols are…

http://www.ely.com 

Oh, boy what an amazing album. Texan Joe Ely is nothing if not, honest in his music. Better still has lots, lots more to offer. A fine judge of a song he also has an immeasurable advantage over most in that his two great buddies of whom he also performs with as the The Flatlanders; Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore he has fast track access…

www.sarahleeandjohnny.com/ 

This husband and wife team have been playing together for over a decade but various distractions (playing with the Guthrie Family Rides Again tour, having a couple of children, producing a well-received children's album) seem to have got in the way of their career as a duo, so that…

http://www.suzybogguss.com 

Bogguss, in 2008 when on tour with Garrison Keillor had a revelation in that one night on stage it struck her that everyone loves to ‘Red River Valley’ except, the children who don’t know the song. Her observation startled her into wanting to help correct something that the American educational system no longer supplied and put…

Country rock bands are supposed to come with at least five or six players, but this three piece band from Sussex are doing things their own way. True enough, there's plenty of guest musicians on this album with Spencer Cullum's pedal steel a particularly strong presence. How this all translates…

http://www.redhouserecords.com

http://www.robinandlinda.com 

Sub-titled Songs from The Musical, Stonewall Country is a wonderful piece of work. I don’t think there is a finer or more enjoyable duo regularly performing, something they have done a great deal the last thirty odd years on…

October 4th sees the release of Merle Haggards 49th studio album, Working in Tennessee. It harks…

www.charlieparr.com 

A UK compilation on Tin Angel Records, Cheap Wine should help latecomers like myself appreciate what a wonder Charlie Parr is. His website announces him thus:  "One man, one guitar, one foot in the grave";  between that  and the image of the fulsomely bearded Charlie sitting on a stool blasting out his own songs, you'll have a fair idea what…

www.buddywhittington.com

Texan blues guitarist Buddy Whittington spent many years as John Mayall's sideman and only stepped out as the leader of his own band in recent years;  it's one thing polishing your reputation as a great blues guitarist but it's quite another to take on the responsibilities of writing the material and singing it, and…

www.dongallardo.com

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Don Gallardo unites introspective lyrics, gritty twang, and honey-warm vocals,…

With the release of the decade encompassing retrospective Heavy Years: 2000-2010 (Ernest Jenning Record Company) long time fans have a new opportunity to trace Mills’ evolution from Chicago alt-country refugee to an astute purveyor of…

www.battlefieldband.co.uk

www.templerecords.co.uk

When it comes to bands of longevity, Scottish folk ensemble the Battlefield Band are the business and have just taken on an exciting new young recruit in, Ewen Henderson (fiddle, bagpipes, vocals, piano). As he now stands alongside Mike Katz (bagpipes,…

www.watertowerbucketboys.com

More likely to be seen sporting baseball caps than dungarees, these exponents of bluegrass from Oregon are rather more "up from the street" than "down from the mountain". Bluegrass is the core of their music making, old-timey music that comes with huge exuberance and a punk music attitude -…

www.acrosstheborderline.org

After hearing and enjoying up to a point, Austin, Texas Betty Soo’s solo album I was more than just pleasantly surprised with Across the Borderline. The meeting of Soo and Vancouver Island, Canada act Doug Cox came about when the couple, who live 2,500 miles apart met while teaching guitar at Acoustic Alaska Guitar…

www.lostpinesband.com

A six-piece bluegrass band from Austin, The Lost Pines acquired the services of the great Lloyd Maines to produce this, their second album; the result is a fourteen song collection that is fast and precise as bluegrass should be, yet simultaneously warm and laid-back. There seem to be so many ways to try and take…