Category: Americana
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Tom Petty: American Treasure + Fleetwood Mac: 50 Years + Aretha Franklin: The Queen Of Soul
Tom Petty’s American Treasure has been compiled by his family and it’s a collection worth getting for the acoustic version of Won’t Back Down alone, recorded live. The box set features live and personal favourites so it’s not your standard attempt to cash in. While some mourned the death of David Bowie, the loss of…
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Willard Grant Conspiracy: Untethered
We first came across Willard Grant Conspiracy on a compilation, a song called Soft Hand, a great downbeat blues/Americana tune with hypnotic vocals and addictive inputs from strings and guitar; it’s about lying in bed. We’ve bought albums since and the quality is always good, if you like gloomy Americana. Their songs always have atmosphere…
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Trapper Schoepp: Primetime Illusion
Schoepp is one of those artistes who sound like they’re going to be big, just because they’re so good. We thought it was a band but Trapper Schoepp is a real name of just one person, and Primetime Illusion is his third album. He writes songs about life, but in the same way as Squeeze…
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The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band: Poor Until Payday
The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band do one thing and do it well, playing their old-fashioned country blues at 250 gigs a year from bars to festivals. The Rev plays authentic guitars, too: a 1930 steel-bodied National, a 1934 wood-bodied National Trojan Resonator and a 1994 reproduction of a 1929 Gibson acoustic, while drummer…
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Neil Young: Songs for Judy
Recent Neil Young live albums can sometimes be of the “I guess you had to be there” kind: the recording is not the same as the actual event, and even for die-hards, they can be a bit meh. Songs for Judy is different. Young’s guitar tech and tour photographer Joel Bernstein taped live shows from…
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Sons of Bill: Oh God Ma’am
If anyone complains to us that “there’s no good music about any more … not since <insert name of briefly popular band> split”, we’re going to perform drastic dental surgery with this CD, which is both excellent and new. (Why do people say that about music? No-one ever says, “There’s no good paintings any more,…
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Israel Nash: Lifted
We don’t know much about Mr Nash, but his music lands perfectly formed and ideal for summer. It’s apparently the Texas-based singer’s fifth album, and it’s — as only critics ever say — a slab of feel-good 60s/70s hippy Americana all ‘bout peace and love. There are no real standouts but it’s a consistently good…
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Vincent Peirani: Living Being II – Night Walker
This is one of those albums that is so out there it’s hard to get a handle on. You don’t believe us? Try thinking of Stairway To Heaven played on an accordion, and if that gives you pause for thought, we’ve not even mentioned it segueing into Kashmir. Peirani, (38), is an is an award-winning…
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Treetop Flyers: Treetop Flyers
Treetop Flyers are from London and won the Glastonbury Festival emerging talent competition in 2011. They don’t rush: their debut album The Mountain Moves came out in 2013 and now this, in 2018. The music is dreamy 60s mellow country rock with some psychedelia thrown in, though opener* Flea Drops, an instrumental, has slide or…
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Ray LaMontagne: Part Of The Light
We’ve not heard much of LaMontagne — who was famously inspired to write music after waking up one morning to the radio playing a Stephen Stills song — since his debut Trouble, which was folk-based reflections on life and death. It sold 500,000 copies but we guess his subsequent albums did less well: his second…
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