folk music
Barbara Dickson, Union ChapelMonday, 13 February 2017
Mention the name “Barbara Dickson” and everyone remembers “I Know Him so Well”, the duet with Elaine Paige which hit the top spot in 1985, the era of big hair, shoulders pads and dry ice. That song didn’t feature in Dickson’s concert at Union Chapel... Read more... |
CD: Six Organs of Admittance - Burning the ThresholdMonday, 13 February 2017
The keeper on Burning the Threshold is “Around the Axis”, a glistening, three-minute instrumental rooted in the finger-picking of Davy Graham’s classic 1961 arrangement of “Anji”. Building from its inspiration, “Around the Axis” deftly interweaves... Read more... |
Martha Wainwright & Ed Harcourt, RoundhouseSaturday, 04 February 2017
The creative partnership between Ed Harcourt and Martha Wainwright is an intriguing one. He is an out and out showman, full of stage presence, bravado and tinged with thespiness. She is an introverted, quirky creative, flanked by the comfort of a... Read more... |
CD: Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band - Big MachineThursday, 26 January 2017
Recorded more or less live at those venerable studios with a great big sound, Rockfield and Real World, Eliza Carthy’s Big Machine is a monster of an album, big, brassy, and bendy. She has a monster of a group with her too, the 12-piece Wayward band... Read more... |
CD: Wolf People - RuinsSaturday, 05 November 2016
At 15 seconds in, it becomes obvious Ruins means business. A brief snatch of acoustic guitar lays the table for a hard-edged, groove-driven slab of melodic guitar psych immediately bringing to mind the heavier moments of Sun Dial’s classic 1990... Read more... |
Loudon Wainwright III, London PalladiumSaturday, 22 October 2016
Loudon Wainwright III, a going concern as a singer-songwriter since the start of the Seventies, has long since been occluded by the commercial success of his brood, Martha and Rufus. Their old man is still enough of a draw to pack out the Palladium... Read more... |
On the road with Bob Dylan: the mother of all rockumentariesWednesday, 12 October 2016
Dont Look Back is the Ur-rockumentary, the template for hundreds of hand-held rock tour films, a source of inspiration as well as a model to aspire to.When director DA Pennebaker went on the road with Bob Dylan as he played a number of English gigs... Read more... |
CD: Katie Melua - In WinterMonday, 10 October 2016
Readers of a certain type of lifestyle blog will be familiar with the concept of hygge. The Danish word, which refers to a state of cosiness and good cheer in which to survive the winter months, is nothing new – but this year, it’s popping up... Read more... |
CD: Norah Jones - Day BreaksWednesday, 05 October 2016
The human voice is as individual as a fingerprint: the emotional, melancholic pull of Billie Holiday; the slightly nasal, always ironic quality of Donald Fagen; the overheated melismas of Mariah Carey; and Michael Bolton, the aural equivalent of the... Read more... |
CD: Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - Shine a LightWednesday, 21 September 2016
In 1983, on the raucous punk-a-billy number “A13, Trunk Road to the Sea”, Billy Bragg affectionately sent up the parochial nature of Britain as compared to the USA (“If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness/Take the A-road, the okay road, that’s the... Read more... |
CD: Pictish Trail - Future EchoesMonday, 05 September 2016
Johnny Lynch – the artist otherwise known as Pictish Trail – is one of the country’s most intriguing musicians. In 2010, he upped sticks and moved into a caravan on the remote island of Eigg, ensuring every appraisal of his work evermore would refer... Read more... |
CD: King Creosote - Astronaut Meets ApplemanMonday, 29 August 2016
While there will, if there is any justice, be plenty written about King Creosote’s Astronaut Meets Appleman, few will probably state what to me is obvious: this is a really, really sexy record. Now, being Scottish, I’m perhaps predisposed to believe... Read more... |
