Americana
Albums of the Year 2024: Amelia Coburn - Between the Moon and the MilkmanFriday, 13 December 2024
I’ve known for some time that Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom’s Never Work is my Album of the Year. This lividly witty, no-filler take-down of workplace servitude arrived on vinyl in May. The creation of two Canadian indie-folkies (from The... Read more... |
Album: Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey RoadSaturday, 30 November 2024
When first I clicked on the stream for this album, I really wasn’t sure about it. In fact, I thought I wasn’t going to like it, much as I had wanted to. But I’ve had it playing almost continuously while I’ve been dealing with mindless stuff – and I’... Read more... |
Album: Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens - American RailroadThursday, 14 November 2024
Conceived in 1998 by the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma to remind the world of the benefits of globalisation in bringing people together, Silkroad is a non-profit organisation with a mission to create “music that engages difference, sparking radical... Read more... |
Album: Dolly Parton & Family - Smoky Mountain DNA - Family, Faith & FablesWednesday, 13 November 2024
This is almost too much to bear. This sprawling 37-track collection begins with the sainted 78-year-old Dolly Parton providing a jaunty spoken narration of her family’s history in music and the church. It’s old-school Disney documentary in tone, but... Read more... |
Album: Garfunkel & Garfunkel: Father and SonFriday, 08 November 2024
A father and son union – the first joint collaboration by Garfunkel père et fils. Art Junior it seems has already released two solo albums, Wie Du and Evergreen, Simon & Garfunkel covers, both of which charted in Germany, from where the... Read more... |
Tucker Zimmerman, The Lexington, London review - undersung old-timer airs songwriting excellenceThursday, 07 November 2024
Tucker Zimmerman is singing a number called “Don’t Go Crazy (Go in Peace)”. At 83, he performs sitting down. Surrounded by support band Iji, who act as his pick-up, he approaches the song in a whispery, affable voice. At the start of his set he was... Read more... |
Album: Chuck Prophet - Wake the DeadSaturday, 02 November 2024
Chuck Prophet speaks the old language of rock’n’roll as if it’s bright and new. His long gone band Green On Red were R.E.M.’s Eighties peers, and as rock’s cultural tide has receded, his loyalty to its spirit of liberty, askance at authority and... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 86: Molly Tuttle, Depeche Mode, Pharoah Sanders, Seefeel, Hinds, Sofi Tukker and moreTuesday, 15 October 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHHannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music)Sometimes a singer comes along who’s not stylistically my thing at all, but their voice has a quality that wrenches, reaches inside, beyond usual taste judgements. For me, a good... Read more... |
Album: AJ Lee & Blue Summit - City of GlassThursday, 11 July 2024
In the world of popular music, tangential connections to success are profile-raising. They offer an immediate connection to an artist. It is beholden on me, then, despite not knowing it when I first enjoyed this album, to mention that rising Grammy... Read more... |
Album: John Moreland - VisitorSaturday, 15 June 2024
The mournful, lonesome voice of John Moreland from Bixby, Oklahoma, will be known by a few, but not many, in this country. The 12 songs on his latest album, Visitor, released on the Thirty Tigers label, should help to remedy that.Visitor is the... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - The BorderMonday, 03 June 2024
At 91, Willie Nelson is about to tour the US with The Outlaws, AKA Minnesota youngster Bob Dylan, 83, the even younger Robert Plant, 75, with Alison Krauss, a mere 52, and 72-year old John Mellencamp (plus a trio of 21st century artists in Celisse,... Read more... |
Between Riverside and Crazy, Hampstead Theatre review - race, religion and rough justiceThursday, 23 May 2024
It’s often said that contemporary American playwrights are too polite, too afraid of giving offence. But this accusation can’t be levelled at Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose dramas – from Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train in 2002 to The Motherfucker in... Read more... |
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