Folk Show Playlist
Hank Williams – Ramblin’ Man
3hattrio – Dust Devil
For 3hatrrio, the Southwest desert has an almost spiritual significance. Rooted in the natural world of their sacred homeland near Zion National Park in Utah, their genre couldn’t be anything other than “American desert music,” a simple idea for a complex sound. The music on this new album, LORD OF THE DESERT (March 1 2018), sounds more like extended landscapes of sound, bare mesas that ring with electronic echoes of acoustic instruments, twisting and turning as the wind shifts. On Lord of the Desert, they mix the routine with the unusual, fusing American folk music with outsider elements like autotune,
Sam Amidon – Blackbird
From The Following Moutain (reviewed here)
Clifton Hicks – Prodigal Son
From Copperhill (2015). Born in Jacksonville, Florida (1985). Hicks learned to play the banjo from Ernie Williams of Sand Mountain, Alabama and George Gibson of Knott County, Kentucky. Find more here.
Brona McVittie – The Flower Of Magherally
From We Are The Wildlife, out now on Company of Corkbots/Autolycus Records. Also a Featured Album of the Month. Read our review here.
We Are The Wildlife is an album that wears its Celtic heart firmly on its sleeve, but for all that, it is an outward-looking piece of work, characterised by a deep understanding of natural processes, of travel and of a shared heritage – musical, cultural and geographic – that merits preservation but also explores change. It is a profoundly powerful and quietly ambitious statement and one of the most distinctive debuts you are likely to hear all year.
Marry Waterson – Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
From The Self Preservation Society – a Featured Album of the Month, reviewed here. There are big projects, there are gargantuan labours of love, and then there is this. The Self Preservation Society is an ambitious vinyl collection of songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s performed by the likes Eliza Carthy, Teddy Thompson, Marry Waterson and many others.
Salt House – Staring at Stars
From Undersong, a Featured Album of the Month reviewed here. There’s far more to Undersong than the time Salt House spent recording on the tiny Hebridean island of Berensay, with seasoned producer Andy Bell. Undersong is a highly accomplished album of wonderful music, that singles Salt House out as a trio of exceptional talent.
Mary Gauthier – It’s Her Love
From our Artist of the Month, taken from her latest album Rifles And Rosary Beads. “a small selection of exceptional songs from a unique, and valuable project. In fact, remarkable really doesn’t cover it. When Mary Gauthier writes, records, performs, you expect remarkable; that’s what her music is. Rifles And Rosary Beads goes far beyond this.”
Beth Nielsen Chapman – Old Church Hymns and Nursery Rhymes
From Hearts of Glass, a Featured Album of the Month reviewed here. New albums from Beth Nielsen Chapman seem few and far between, but when they do arrive, they’re solid gold. Hearts Of Glass is no exception. Her decision to bring in Sam Ashworth as producer has fostered a new setting for her music, one that offers her engaging lyrics room to breathe.
Anne Briggs – Willie O Winesbury
The Holy Modal Rounders – The Cuckoo
False Lights – Henry Martin
From Harmonograph, a Featured Album of the Month reviewed here. What Sam Carter and Jim Moray have created with Harmonograph is fittingly detailed, truly collaborative, varied and often beautiful. It is the work of two modern masters in perfect harmony. In the world of folk and roots music, collaborations don’t get much bigger and better than this.
Honeyfeet – White Rabbit
Another beauty from The Self Preservation Society – a Featured Album of the Month, reviewed here.
Willie Nelson – Darkness On The Face Of The Earth