Bonnie Dobson teams up with psychedelic cowboys The Hanging Stars for new album, Dreams, and premiers lead single and video ‘Baby’s Got The Blues’.
Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson is probably best known as the composer of Morning Dew, a song she wrote in 1961 that’s been covered by the likes of the Grateful Dead, Fred Neil, Jeff Beck, Lulu and Clannad. After withdrawing from the public spotlight, she surprised us all when, in the summer of 2013, she was “coaxed out of retirement” by Ski Williams and the Hornbeam Records team; she assembled an eight-strong line-up of musicians and began work recording Take Me For A Walk In The Morning Dew, a 15-song compilation of sorts (reviewed here). KLOF’s Helen Gregory described the album as spellbinding, one you will return to over and over again.
At 84, she’s surprised us yet again, teaming up with psychedelic cowboys The Hanging Stars for a new album. The word is that when the Stars came onto her horizon, she sensed she’d found the perfect accompanists for her new compositions. The pairing seems like the perfect match, with the Stars described in these pages as “wearing their cosmic country and late 60s West Coast folk-rock influences on their sleeve…” Last year, they dropped On A Golden Shore, an impressive fifth album, reviewed here by Mike Davies, which underpinned their credentials as “a leading light in the UK Cosmic Americana cohort.”
With no concrete plan, they worked up a few songs, then went into Sean Read’s ‘Famous Times’ studio in Hackney to see what might happen. What might happen is now Dreams (out on July 11th, 2025 via Loose Music) comprising eight songs; six being recent compositions never before studio-recorded while a further two reach into and celebrate her back catalogue.
It begins with ‘Baby’s Got The Blues‘, also their first single, due for release tomorrow (April 15th – ); it instantly proves them to be the perfect combo.
In his sleeve notes to 1962’s Dear Companion, Pete Welding highlighted the “breathtaking purity and clarity of Bonnie’s voice”; ‘Baby’s Got The Blues’ confirms that in 2025, that voice is still there, undiminished, and the ease with which her voice burrows into the Stars’ sound makes it clear why she was instinctively drawn to them.
Watch the accompanying video by Julian Hand below:
“From beginning to end, and it hasn’t ended yet, it’s been a joy; working with the Stars, working with Sean Read. I think back to recording… in those massive big studios; it was so impersonal, you didn’t know any of these musicians. So this was magic, and double-magic because we didn’t go in with a view to putting out an album, I just wanted to get these songs down, because of the eight songs, seven are mine and six are new that I’d never recorded before.” Bonnie Dobson
“It’s a beautiful story, and her resilience and strength is nothing less than miraculous and remarkable, and her joie de vivre. She was incredible to record with, she can’t just pick up a guitar and do it half-assed, she performs like it’s the Carnegie Hall every time. I learned loads from her; how beautiful and busy she makes something very simple sound.’” Richard Olson (The Hanging Stars)
Ask Richard Olson about the recording and he’ll claim ‘my job was to roughen things up a little, be the grit in the oyster’. He sees ‘Dreams’ as “a little letter written to herself; it could be a bit cheesy but it’s not because she’s Bonnie Dobson, and this is a real record, not a looking back record, not a sentimental record; this legend chose to link up with this group at this moment, and it sounds pretty damn good, and I’m so excited to be the rhythm guitar player again.
“It’s truly life-affirming, and that’s all Bonnie stands for as a person as well, with all she’s gone through; and personally I can relate to that because I’ve had too much of that in my life far too early; and she’s says ‘I play music with you and that’s what it’s all about’. She’s eighty-four, she’s lived twice as long as me, and when she says that it makes me want to continue. It’s lot of fun to play music with her, and I think we’re going to have a lot more fun playing shows together.”
‘Dreams’ will be released via Loose Music (DL/CD/LP) on July 11th, 2025
Baby’s Got The Blues is released tomorrow, April 15th, 2025 ()