We leave you this weekend (or welcome the new week in if you’re reading this on Monday) dear readers with news of Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence who hit the UK for dates next week. The pair met while performing at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in 2013, and since then these two friends have “gotten into the habit” (as they say over there) of taking time off from their solo projects to write and sing together in their hometown of Nashville and on tour across the country. Continue reading “Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence hits the UK for tour next week”
A new musical is coming to Oldham, not that we generally run stories on musicals here at AUK, but this one is worth a mention, featuring as it does the songs of Joe Hill, more on him in a moment. ‘Bread & Roses’ is a new play by writer Ian Kershaw, based on the real-life story of the huge mill workers strike – led, and won, by women – in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA, in 1912., described as “an uplifting new play about hope; it follows the story of Lucy-Rose Atkins as she navigates the strike, facing love, loss, lies and deceit, and using her fierce intelligence to make the journey from unskilled worker to impassioned leader.” 
Following her successful performance at the UK Americana Awards showcase back in January, new Nashville singer-songwriter Kashena Sampson hits these shores at the end of the month to help promote her debut album ‘Wild Heart’ which came out in the United States last year and has just been released here on New Moon Records. Recorded live to tape in a couple days at popular East Nashville recording studio, The Bomb Shelter, Sampson has recorded with top Nashville-based players, including Jon Estes co-producing – as well as playing bass – Jeremy Fetzer on guitar, and Jon Radford on drums. 
Carrying the torch for original acoustic blues from a bygone era, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton returns to the UK for a short run of dates from Friday of this week.
As part of a lengthy European tour covering Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Blitzen Trapper hit our shores for 3 brief dates this week. It’s hard to credit that it’s been 10 years since the Portland, Oregon-based folk rock act’s breakthrough album, ‘Furr.’ Recent release, ‘Wild and Reckless’ has been described by frontman Eric Earley as “something like a cross-eyed stepchild to Furr.”