We’re taking a break until Tuesday next week to celebrate the ascension of the Easter bunny into heaven. Don’t forget ‘Three Chords and the Truth’ the Woody Guthrie documentary which shows on BBC4 tomorrow night at 9pm. We leave you with this cheery little number to ponder on. It’s presumably a rhetorical question for most of us, Kirk Douglas aside. Have a good one.
Video Premiere: Anton & The Colts “My Favourite Song”
Now this is rather good from Glasgow’s Anton & The Colts. It’s the new single from their album “No End Of The Line”, out now and has real heart and soul. Nice video too. Anton is on a solo tour of the US starting today – dates on his Facebook page – and our friends are highly recommended to check him out.
Danny Schmidt announces UK dates for May
Austin, Texas-based folk-Americana singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt has announced details of a UK tour next month in support of his new album ‘Standard Deviation’ which we described as a collection of “songs of the troubadour, the worldly-wise minstrel, sung with strength, intelligence and insightfulness” and a “lyrical work of art.” Continue reading “Danny Schmidt announces UK dates for May”
NPR previews new Josh Ritter album in full
Well this is a treat for the Easter weekend – NPR are previewing today the new Josh Ritter album ‘Fever Breaks’ which is due out on Friday next week and which, of course, is produced by Jason Isbell, whose 400 Unit serve as the backing band for the record. NPR comment: Continue reading “NPR previews new Josh Ritter album in full”
Molly Tuttle + Ole Kirkeng, Night & Day, Manchester, 11th April 2019
Molly Tuttle has been creating quite a lot of noise recently and on tonight’s evidence she’s no empty vessel. Twenty-six year old Tuttle grew up in San Francisco and started to play the guitar when she was eight years old. Four years ago, she moved to Nashville, releasing a seven track mini- album ‘Rise’ in 2017. Her debut full album ‘When You’re Ready’ was released earlier this month to huge critical acclaim. No surprise really then to find a packed crowd in Manchester wanting to check out the live experience and they were not disappointed as they were treated to an enthralling evening of Tuttle’s songs along with some carefully selected covers and a display of folk guitar playing that stands up alongside the very best. Continue reading “Molly Tuttle + Ole Kirkeng, Night & Day, Manchester, 11th April 2019”
Lucille Furs “Another Land” (Requiem Pour Un Twister, 2019)
Lucille Furs, a five piece from Chicago, have an abiding admiration for psych-influenced rock, and on the showing of ‘Another Land‘ there’s a strong Anglophile side to that admiration. It’s something that singer Trevor Newton Pritchett willingly admits to when he reels off their influences, saying “You might hear the Zombies for their kind of haunting and contemplative quality, the Kinks kind-of casual criticism, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band for their distant romantic quality, Temples, Love…” Continue reading “Lucille Furs “Another Land” (Requiem Pour Un Twister, 2019)”
Field Medic “Fade Into The Dawn” (Run For Cover, 2019)
Field Medic, aka Kevin Patrick, clearly doesn’t give a damn. The wild hearted Californian casually screams how bad his life sucks and does it with class and a healthy does of black humour. This second release on Run For Cover Records revolves around the musician blues: feeling neglected by the audience, having no other home than the passing Taco Bell, and no other satisfaction than the post-gig shot of booze. Continue reading “Field Medic “Fade Into The Dawn” (Run For Cover, 2019)”
Pick of the Political Pops: Dwight Yoakam “Suspicious Minds”
There is a small but active cabal here at Americana-UK Towers who are vociferous supporters of a little known genre of music which we term ‘Cowboy-grime-hop’. This musical back alley is chiefly notable for its heady mix of slap bass, drum machine aesthetic and steel guitars. Lyrically it is an acquired taste espousing as it does such ‘virtues’ as homophobia, sexism and a nostalgia for apartheid type politics. On the plus side some of the harmonies are great. Continue reading “Pick of the Political Pops: Dwight Yoakam “Suspicious Minds””
An American Forrest “O Bronder, Donder Yonder” (Hearth Music, 2019)
If you ever needed a case study to argue that an album’s backstory is sometimes as striking as the music itself, then ‘O Bronder, Donder Yonder’ wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Forrest Van Tuyl – that’s the singer-songwriter who is An American Forrest – currently spends nearly six months of every year working in the Northeastern Oregon wilderness, much of it on horseback, guiding mule-trains over mountain trails. That off-the-beaten-track (in more senses than one) experience as a modern-day cowboy acts as the musical and lyrical backbone for ‘O Bronder, Donder Yonder’, melded into a sound with strong resonances of 1970s Outlaw Country, straight-up classic country music and – last but not least – the Appalachian bluegrass of Gillian Welch. (As Van Tuyl, perhaps slightly wryly, comments to AUK about Welch, “We tend to steal from a lot of the same places.”) Continue reading “An American Forrest “O Bronder, Donder Yonder” (Hearth Music, 2019)”
Joy Williams “When Does A Heart Move On?” – Listen
It’s tempting, of course, to hear this song as part of an on-going exchange of bruised emotions between Joy Williams and her ex-partner in singing John Paul White. It’s probably just a coincidence though. Probably. Even if it isn’t a CSN-like coded message aimed at a particular bandmate ‘When Does a Heart Move on ?‘ is undeniably beautiful in a frail and tenuous way. It comes from the album ‘Front Porch‘, which will be out via Sensibility/Thirty Tigers on May 3rd.