Alasdair Fotheringham

Classic Clips: Catherine MacLellan “Sparrows” – Austin, Texas, March 18th 2010

September 30, 2022 Alasdair Fotheringham 3

Given Classic Clips has recently featured very-big-to-biggish-name artists like The Rolling Stones, Crosby and Nash and Mumford & Sons, it might be a surprise that next up is a performance of what was at the time […]

AUK’s Top 10 Americana Albums of the 21st Century: Alasdair Fotheringham

August 11, 2022 Alasdair Fotheringham 0

If the truth be known, and no disrespect intended, it’s always struck me as a little odd to start a list of ‘Top 10… whatever’ by emphasising the purely personal nature of the choices and the […]

Artwork for Highlights of the Low Nights

James Edwyn & the Borrowed Band “Highlights of the Low Nights”

June 23, 2022 Alasdair Fotheringham 0

A record which singlehandedly destroys the cliché of the ‘difficult third album’, possibly forever. “Oh I just don’t know where to begin,” Elvis Costello once sang in the opening line of his classic New Wave hit […]

Ryan Law and the Shelter “Ryan Law and the Shelter”

June 7, 2022 Alasdair Fotheringham 0

Hard hitting, big hearted, dynamic Southern-esque rock of the kind that never dates. One thing that strikes you instantly about Ryan Law and the Shelter’s second, eponymous, album is that they certainly know how to write […]

AUK’s Chain Gang: James McMurtry “Forgotten Coast”

June 6, 2022 Alasdair Fotheringham 1

Teal ducks aren’t just familiar to ornithologists and AUK Chain Gang readers since last week’s inclusion of Joan Shelley’s ‘Teal’ in the series by Darren Lumbroso. “For a big chunk of the year, the blue-winged teal, […]

Stamping on the passion: Why AI written PR is a bad thing for music

September 21, 2026 2

If a music writer opens ten press releases this month, they’ll spot something odd. They all sound like the same person wrote them. Not because the artists share a publicist, or because there’s a house style […]

Carla Gover and Friends “Williams Branch is Hard to Find”

September 21, 2026 0

A cycle of Appalachian folk songs from writer and activist Si Kahn, subtitled Songs for Strong Kentucky Women The subtitle for this album is “Si Kahn’s Songs for Strong Kentucky Women”. Si Kahn is one of […]

Ad for American Beauty album 5th December 1970

For the Sake of the Song: Grateful Dead “High Time”