Spanning Americana, blues, roots and both traditional and contemporary folk, despite everything, 2021 was something of a golden year with both the emergence of new names embarking on the journey to build bright careers and established artists returning with inspired new albums that pushed personal envelopes to new levels, exploring new approaches and musical ideas. Inevitably, given the climate in which many were produced, reflection and taking stock were prevalent concerns. Still, equally, there were celebrations of life and anthems of hope for a better tomorrow. As such, pruning my list of personal highlights down to ten has meant some tough decisions, but here are those to which I’ve returned most often, both as in-car travelling companions and to feature tracks on my radio show.
John Smith – The Fray
Even if many of the songs mine break-up and self-examination themes, the overall feel of the Devon-based singer’s seventh and finest album is one of supportive constancy and making it through dark times. With an array of guest contributors, including Jason Rebello, Sarah Jarosz, Lisa Hannigan, Kenneth Pattengale, and Jessica Staveley-Taylor, it opens with the feel-good Friends. It ends with the acceptance, recovery and resolution of She’s Doing Fine, a catharsis that simply keeps giving.
Katherine Priddy – The Eternal Rocks Beneath
One of the finest debut albums of the year and a deserved triumphant emergence on to the national stage after steadily building a solid reputation in Birmingham through live performances in both intimate clubs and festivals, backing vocals, a critically acclaimed EP and her collaboration of Nick Drake covers with Lukas Drinkwater, Jon Wilks and Jon Nice. Championed by Richard Thompson, her superbly crafted and musically variegated album underlines the fluid purity of her voice, the dexterity of her fingerpicking and the literate nature of her lyrics, deservedly topping the Folk Charts on its release. The future is hers for the taking.
Serious Sam Barrett – The Seeds Of Love
One of several contenders for traditional folk album of the year, Yorkshireman Barrett edged it with this reworking of Appalachian-influenced folk songs from the British Isles centred around love lost and unrequited such as the a capella Drowsy Sleeper, complemented by two originals, including Valentine’s Day based around Ophelia’s song in Hamlet. Showcasing his clawhammer banjo skills in bringing new life to Bushes And Briars, these seeds produced a truly bountiful harvest.
Amy Speace and The Orphan Brigade – There Used To Be Horses Here
One of the most personal albums of the year, this teamed Speace with Ben Glover, Josh Britt and Neilson Hubbard for a collection of poignantly moving songs fuelled by the birth of her son and the death of her father, the title track detailing a return to her childhood home and witnessing the devastating changes to the rural landscape. Deeply reflective, in singing of his passing and the funeral with the heartbreaking emotions clearly evident in her voice, this is an album about loss and grief that ranks up there with the very best, closing with a beautiful cover of Warren Zevon’s benediction Don’t Let Us Get Sick.
Harbottle & Jonas – The Beacon
The West Country couple have been slowly but surely building a reputation as one of the finest duos on the contemporary folk scene. Their live Facebook sessions found them performing a wide range of covers essential viewing during the lockdowns. Inspired by the ancient site on the hill behind their home, ‘The Beacon’ draws on nature imagery of the seasons (I Make A Nest) and true stories (Edith Cavell), with their lyrics often centring around the need for human communication and interaction. Recorded in their brief incarnation as a trio with fiddle player Annie Bayliss, the arrangements are intricate but unfussy. David’s fingerpicking and Freya’s keyboards provide perfectly judged accompaniment to their shared or solo lead vocals, like the beacon of its title; this shines with a luminous radiance.
David Keenan – What Then?
Following his astonishing 2020 debut, A Beginners Guide To Bravery was a formidable task, but the Irish ex-pat succeeded with aplomb with an album steeped in existential angst and driven by the experiences following its predecessor’s release, trying to come to terms with its ramifications and the expectations it set up. Again drawing on such influences as Beckett, Joyce, Waits and Morrison, but also showing an occasional ‘poppier’ side, its DNA part poetry, part whisky, at times adopting the persona of Joe Soap, it draws on memories of his teenage years, his late grandmother and complicated family relationships to both raw and mesmerising effect. Featuring spoken contributions by two poets and, after a song titled James Dean on his debut, nodding to Irish hellraiser Peter O’Toole, it again confirmed Keenan as a singular talent of unbridled brilliance.
Margo Cilker – Pohorylle
Another full-length debut of the year, the Oregon-born Americana singer-songwriter channelled such influences as Williams, Welch and Van Sandt through a collection of largely autobiographical songs about her travels and life on the road as well as familiar relationship trials and tribulations. With themes ranging from restlessness to abuse, the instrumentation mingling acoustic guitar, pedal steel, piano and fiddle with nods to waltz-time old school country, as well as a reference to Little Feat’s Willin’, it serves as an impressive announcement that she’s ready to take her career to the next level and beyond.
Grace Petrie – Connectivity
After eight well-received but modestly performing albums, Leicester-born Petrie finally achieved her long-deserved mainstream breakthrough with a Top 40 placing in the national charts. Stuffed with rousing crowd-friendly, musically upbeat folk-rock numbers, she might be well-described as a queer one-woman Merry Hell by way of Skinny Lister, her lyrics equally capable of eliciting a smile as well as a tear. Fuelled in part by the pandemic and its forced isolation, her themes of community taken on extra resonance, but are also balanced by self-deprecating songs of self-doubt and questioning, and never afraid to take the piss out of herself, such as recalling a poorly attended gig in Galway (though it did end up winning over the crowd). Quite probably the only album to ever feature a post-breakup rumination set in Ikea, while also offering political commentary regarding police responses to peaceful protest, it made you want to crank up the speakers, bounce around the room and pump your fist in the air.
Garrett Heath – Kingdom Come
My out of left field discovery of the year. I’d never encountered the rural Pennsylvania native before this, his second album, but, written in response to a string of personal trials, I was blown away. Musically, it’s a simple affair of either strummed or fingerpicked acoustic guitar, occasionally featuring harmonica, and, as such, inevitably brings to mind the stripped back work of Springsteen, Prine and Dylan in both the music and Heath’s cracked and plaintive world-weary voice. Peppered with religious imagery and references without being preachy, he sings of flaws, loss, need, and of opening your eyes to the beauty of the world rather than being blinded by the ugliness of hate, of taking a stand rather than being beaten down. Regardless of whether you share his faith or not, these songs of searching for hope and salvation will touch your spirit.
Martyn Joseph – 1960
Written to mark his 60th birthday, this is by far Joseph’s most personal and reflective album yet, the title track a musing on what might have happened if different paths had been taken. Variously stripped back and fully orchestrated with strings and brass, with a co-write by Simon Mayo and a contribution from Janis Ian, it marries his trademark bluesy folk intensity and urgency with a more minimal delivery, his voice always a well of emotion, passion and feeling, whether addressing intimate family connections or a call to reach out and join in common bonds. Featuring a hidden bonus cover of Wichita Linesman, it is, quite literally, an album of the year