Mike Davies

Fran Foote of Stick in the Wheel and her mother Belinda Kempster, make their own contribution to the folk tradition with this album of songs mostly collected from Essex and learned from Fran’s great uncle, Ernie Austin who was recorded by Topic for the 1974 album Flash Company.

With its title inspired by a line in a  Keats poem,  High Romance marks a quantum leap for Emily Mae Winters that sees her fully immersed in her Southern Americana influences, setting a new benchmark by which future Americana albums should be measured.

Justin Rutledge’s eighth album comes in the wake of his marriage last year and subsequent impending fatherhood. With albums like this, it’s unfathomable that he still remains largely undiscovered to the wider Americana/folk-roots audience outside of Canada.

It’s the water of life that gives Chip Taylor’s new album its title and the opening recollection of a time back in 1958 when that’s what he briefly did for a living. As any whiskey connoisseur will tell you, this album is a mellow, aged in the cask of life 18-year old singular malt. Sip and savour.

Whether you just want to drift away in the soothing vocals and musical ambience or dig into her lyrical concerns, the album offers many rewards and, while it may confront death, it also embraces life.

Featuring a number of special guests including Laura-Beth Salter, Innes Watson, Mike Vass, Rosie Hood and Paul Carrack, ‘The Way is Clear’ unequivocally confirms Morris’s own must visit place on the contemporary folk scene. 

Resonant Rogues, Sparrow and Keith J. Smith, return with a breathtaking album which clocks up the musical air miles from France to Appalachia. Catch them on their UK tour in July.

Cara Luft and JD Edward make a welcome return as The Small Glories as they celebrate a sense of place. On the final track ‘Winnipeg,’ they sing “It’s the music and the vibe where our spirits come alive”, something that seems a pretty good description of the album too.

Nashville-based couple Scott and Kim Collins, best known as The Smoking Flowers, return with a stripped-down acoustic album, an affirmation of their shared love and the triumph over adversity, it snowballs into your heart.

Our reviewer falls under the spell of Skipinnish upon hearing their latest album ‘Steer by the Stars’, with its nautical themes he declares it the “catch of the day”. This is the band’s seventh album and their 20th Anniversary.

Old Man Luedecke’s ‘Easy Money’ is a relaxed and effortlessly listenable take on troubled times and personal tugs and turmoils, this is cash you definitely want in hand.

Western Stars is an album that creeps up on you and leaves your heart hurting. It’s been commented that it seems strange that Springsteen hasn’t responded to Trump’s America, but listen to this album between the lines and you’ll realise that perhaps he has.