In part one of our live review of Gate to Southwell Festival Johnny takes in top performances from Ranagri, The Hot Seats, Chris Wood, Billy Bragg & The Young’uns. It was, without a doubt, a superb festival and we have more to come!

By moving to New Orleans, Rickie Lee Jones has reignited her creative spark. The Other Side Of Desire is her first new original album since 2009, tapping into the rhythmic heartbeat and mystical, musical spirit of the Crescent City.

The Lake District Folk Weekend is a new family-friendly folk festival centred around Hawkshead Brewery’s ‘Beer Hall’. Kicks off with headling concert from Folk legend Tom McConville and support including Dan Webster. Concerts, sessions and rambles! Bring your walking boots, voices, instruments and your drinking heads!

Our Tune of the Day is from Will Pound and Eddy Jay as they perform a staggering version of Floating Candle. I’ve seen Will performing this tune with his full band but with just harmonica and accordion it becomes something all the more innovative and ear-catching as both musicians shine to their fullest!

With sights firmly set on preserving songs of their respective native traditions, Malinky have struck a perfect balance in retaining authenticity whilst remaining innovative and fresh in their approach to arrangement. Far Better Days is an album of timeless quality that will call you back time and time again.

Maid on the Shore is an impressively accomplished display of Niamh Boadle’s skills as a musician, writer, singer and arranger and makes the ideal starting point for anyone interested in finding out why she’s one of folk music’s rising stars.

Two well known names from the world of British folk music have made it to the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to folk music, namely Kathryn Tickell (OBE) and Ashley Hutchings (MBE).

A request for an old song led Boo Hewerdine to uncover a full album’s worth of material, which his label deemed simply too good not to be heard and Open shows the wisdom of that call. Yet another unassuming masterpiece that quietly slips alongside everything Boo has done with its indelible stamp of quality.

James Varda, one of the most distinctive singer songwriters of his generation, has died. I interviewed James back in January and we spoke about his career and ‘Chance and Time’, widely hailed as his best ever album on which he ‘turned his songwriting talent to chronicling the experience of confronting illness and death, and in doing so, created a unique language and music of love and pain, family, landscape and …

With Not One but Another Andy Kirkham has crafted a collection of consistently dazzling, exemplary playing alongside lyrics that are as thought-provoking as they are moving. This is a beautifully played, eclectic album that grows with the repeated listens that it deserves.

A neatly timed appetite-whetting release in decent advance of a very brief UK tour comes this latest collaboration between the two country legends who’ve been good pals now for close on 40 years.

With Cambridge Folk Festival getting closer the full line up for the festival has now been announced along with the Club Tent Showcases and Den Stage line-up which features many FRUK favourites. There are also some newly confirmed main-stage acts including the Jaywalkers and this year’s BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winners Talisk.