Three Chords and the Truth UK

Country music may stake its existence on the ‘truth,' but reality is far more mythical for a person raised in metropolitan suburbia and schooled in late 70s/early 80s chart music thousands of miles away from the revered ‘south’. Occasionally, you require a stark reminder why your ears leant in an alien direction and started to feel something for the quintessential sounds of rural America. Modern times make seeking out what you want accessible  although this can negate the thrill of the chase. While the name Jason James popped up out of nowhere with absolutely zero prior knowledge, its source was a clever curation. A single sample of one track immediately led to a full play, then another and another… SEEMS LIKE TEARS AGO was the total antidote to a slow burner and that stark reminder to why heads turned a few ‘tears’ ago. Yes, this album was a promo and can be judged by all on October 4th. It plays to a gallery, but plays an absolute blinder. At the time of publishing these t...

Rules of engagement are absent in music. Show of Hands have been making music as an entity for thirty years and have never sought a low profile, even to those who dip into the folk world on an ad hoc basis. Yet despite catching them occasionally at festivals as well as a Steve Knightley solo appearance, opportunity to allocate some listening time to their music has never materialised. Over the last half a dozen years, investment of time in folk circles has tended to focus around smaller upcoming acts, with a particular lure of the female voice and the sensibility it often pervades. It has generally been a trait to leave words about the established figures in folk music to others, but like a lot of things in life, maybe it was time for a change.  Thus a temptation to engage with the latest Show of Hands album was accepted as a challenge. While being under no illusion that more informed inches will dissect and surface elsewhere, maybe fresh ears can bring something to the party....

The story began in Octagon Hall Kentucky (a place so near yet so far on a personal scale) before crossing the ocean to a cave location in Osimo Italy. With two instalments of this musical odyssey complete, attention switches to the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland and the next chapter of The Orphan Brigade making a new kind of field music for the twenty-first century. Who knows whether this project is a calculated journey or a creative whim, but the results of absorbing the lure of a single location in the sponge-like medium of music and song continues to conjure delightful treats to a growing audience. The emphasis of the last phrase falls in line with the band trio of Joshua Britt, Ben Glover and Neilson Hubbard being in a fortunate position to finally tour an Orphan Brigade project. So before we submerge into what TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD delivers, two important dates for the diary are: September 27 - release day and October 2 - UK tour opener. Oh, and a Birmingham gig at the Kit...

Amy Speace made a fleeting visit to the UK recently playing a handful of shows including an afternoon slot at the Long Road Festival. Her parting shot was leaving us with the most glorious of records and an outstanding reminder to what an all-round talent she is. A spacious delay between full length albums, punctuated by an EP release and an active involvement in the Applewood Road collaboration project, has served to further whet the appetite of those who intently listened to a pair of albums catapulting the name Amy Speace into directed overseas listening circles. As effective as HOW TO SLEEP IN A STORMY BOAT and LAND LIKE A BIRD resonated in the years between 2011 and 2013, the hot-off-the press new album moves the dial along significantly further. ME AND THE GHOST OF CHARLEMAGNE emerges categorically as a work of art, theatrically gracing a lavish canvas. A north easterner by background now submerged in the songs and sounds of the south, this Nashville based artist is at the...

A couple of years ago Jeremy Ivey played a pretty low key opening set at the Bullingdon in Oxford that quickly slipped from the memory bank. This was escalated by a scintillating performance from the headliner of which the opener had more than a little in common with. Whether or not any of the songs from his debut album featured on the night is probably immaterial, but that would certainly change when the time comes for him to return to a UK stage. While that day awaits, the release of THE DREAM AND THE DAYDREAMER will give Jeremy Ivey's solo career a huge shot in the arm and it will comfortably sit in many a listening repertoire. 9 tracks and 33 minutes playing time suggests limitations, but sometimes less is more, an odd conundrum that comes into play here. Not a second of a tight landscape is wasted as Ivey gears his songwriting to a wide range of issues from the deeply personal to others of a more macro persuasion. The whole soundtrack echoes shades of country music caugh...

1999 certainly produced some albums that have stood the test of time, especially a couple that have helped mould country, folk and rock sentiments into the burgeoning 21 st century genre of Americana. Within weeks of Lucinda Williams hitting our shores to celebrate the 20 th anniversary of her seminal album CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD, Oh Susanna has done the same with her classic release of that year JOHNSTOWN. To keep the similarities going, both artists made Birmingham a port of call for the revival tour and followed a similar theme of playing the entire album in its original order plus a few old favourites to wrap the show. Much has been made of Lucinda’s Town Hall gig in August, but the time has arrived to shower rightful praise on Oh Susanna’s somewhat lower key celebration at the Kitchen Garden, albeit no less absorbing and wholly commendable.  From a literal perspective, those attending both events may choose to contrast the scale differentiation, but a little tw...

The 2019 festival season concluded with the second staging of The Long Road Festival in the grounds of Stanford Hall in Leicestershire. An event heavily promoted for its inclusive approach to bind ties between a rather extended family that loosely falls into a tag line of ‘country, Americana and roots’. From lavish expectations that raised plenty of eyebrows twelve months ago, the festival showed extensive signs of bedding in. Any parade of artists trying to meet such a bold objective will always be subject to close scrutiny, tinted with personal preference, taste and desire. Therefore any post-event look back can only focus on a) what was scheduled (without decrying what wasn’t), and, b) what you chose to see. Essentially the first factor dictates whether you were going to attend, while the second evolves into how you choose to spend your time on site.  Ray Benson leading Asleep at the Wheel My approach has often lent towards re-enacting the gig experience of watching who...

A fallow year for me at Moseley Folk in 2018 and a few observed changes in place when making the return in 2019. First, a formal amendment in the name to the Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, a slight adjustment long overdue in respect to the event's somewhat eclectic nature, Secondly, the expansion beyond the normal tracks to a sloped area housing the revamped Kitchen Garden stage at the foot and the aptly named Folk on the Slope towards the top. The programme also saw a considerable extension with the wider arts embraced in exhibits like comedy, the spoken word and embodied activism. Yet the core of the festival remains in the twin central stages hosting a host of fine performers ensuring the music flowed on a continuous basis from half eleven to half ten.  Commitments elsewhere on Friday and Saturday restricted attendance to just the Sunday of this three day event. A day increasingly hailed as ‘folk day’, a little ironic in light that we are at a folk festival. Moseley has ...