Category: Folk
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Johnny Cash: Man In Black Live in Denmark
The highlight of this CD is possibly not the Man In Black himself but a tune that later featured in Quentin Tarantino’s best film. This CD (it was originally part of a DVD) was recorded in 1971 for Danish television, which explains the self-censoring line “son of a bleep” at the end of Boy Named…
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Emilie and Ogden: 10,000
This CD is a little too unassuming for its own good; it’s endearing and entertaining but just a little too quiet to really snag your attention, which is less than it deserves. Mind you, harp-led music can tend towards twee and there’s nary a sign of tweeing here, which is good. Emilie Kahn is a…
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Frankie Lee: American Dreamer
… and coming up on the inside is this contender for album of the year, though it takes one or two plays for its many charms to become apparent. This is an excellent, if low key, album, somewhere between Stevie Nicks (for the vocals) and Mark Knopfler (rootsy country with gentle guitar noodling) for the…
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Ciaran Lavery: Not Nearly Dark
The Press notes compare Lavery to Fionn Regan, which is good: we thought that, too. Regan is an Irish singer/songwriter with a distinctive voice who wrote good tunes — try Be Good Or Be Gone or Underwood Typewriter. We played this and Regan’s debut back to back and Regan has the edge vocally, possessing a…
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Beans On Toast: Running Up The Hill
Last week we reviewed EJ Moeran’s Folksong Arrangements (Naxos 8571359), a collection of old songs collected by Ernie Moeran. We made the point that they were songs from an age before mass entertainment, when farmers or sailors would gather and be entertained by songs that told stories to which they could relate. The words were…
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Boo Hewerdine: Open
This new album is a sort of greatest hits for Hewerdine; it features unreleased recordings made during sessions in 2003. The tracks include early versions of two of his classic songs (Muddy Water and Geography) as well as acoustic recordings of concert favourites such as Microfilm and Name, the latter song opening the album. As…
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Danny and The Champions Of The World: What Kind Of Love
This is a great album, and you should go and buy it. Off you go. Danny and his boys are British but play American-style blues rock, in a life affirming, happy, cheerful way. They’re somewhere, musically and in spirit, between Bruce Springsteen (anthemic), Tom Petty (chilled), Dexy’s Midnight Runners (for the brass and Celtic soul)…
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Thea Gilmore: Ghosts and Graffiti
Much as Gilmore is respected as a singer songwriter, she left us a little unmoved. She’s respected in the folk world but she passed us by, at least until her last album Regardless which was packed full of sparkling pop tunes and deserved to do better than it did (which was #39 in the charts,…
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Sunjay: Sunjay
Sunjay (last name Brayne, you can see why he’s dropped that) has the same effect on us as the first time we heard Gomez, with that unbelievable voice coming out of a boy who looked about 12. Ditto Sunjay, an Anglo-Indian from the West Midlands who looks like about 16 and is built like a…
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