The RGM Review Roundup July 2020

July 17, 2020 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Country, Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Americana

As usual, RGM has been inundated with quality music from here, there and everywhere. We’re not complaining, especially in these difficult times when a good tune can provide shelter from the pandemic storm. RGM scribe Rich Barnard found time from homeschooling and making the kids lunch to check out four recent/upcoming albums that we believe are well worth your time and/or hard-earned money From Canada via the wilds of Scotland to sunny California welcome to the July edition of the RGM review roundup.

Kevin Hunt - Devil's Daughter (Album Review)

June 05, 2020 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Kevin Hunt might well be a new name to many and ‘Devil’s Daughter’ is indeed his debut album but dig a little deeper and you’ll find twenty-five years of hard work and plenty of road miles etched into the grooves of ‘Devil’s Daughter’. Kevin’s slow ascent up the folk music ladder was boosted by an appearance at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2018 and the time was finally right to get his songs captured for posterity. The Irishman ventured into Gladeside Studios in Cambridge, where producer Dan Wilde was the man entrusted to capture the essence and spirit of those road worked tunes.

Ken Yates - Quiet Talkers (Album Review)

May 27, 2020 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Americana, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Sharing an easy-going vocal intimacy with Josh Rouse and Paul Simon, singer-songwriter Ken Yates’ new album is undeniably gentle on the ear. Spotlessly produced by multi-instrumentalist Jim Bryson (who also worked on Yates’ 2016 LP, Huntsville) there’s a light, west coast sheen to Yates’ brand of folky Americana. But, delve a little deeper and you’ll quickly find a sobering lyrical wisdom that’s not always synonymous with the genre.

Nichole Wagner - Dance Songs For The Apocalypse EP (Album Review)

May 20, 2020 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Americana, Folk, Pop

It’s been said many times before, but the covers record is a fickle beast and incredibly hard to get right. Do you slavishly replicate every note of the original or take a more daring approach? The replication route can prove a little dull, while the opposite route can lead to disaster, upsetting fans of the original and alienating fans hungry for original material. Both options can be considered a pointless exercise best reserved for the contractual obligation release - if you’ve not recorded a live show. Luckily Nichole Wagner didn’t listen to this advice or seemingly worry about any of these issues, and the result is an impressive release with a foot in both camps.

Jamie Lawson - Moving Images EP (Album Review)

May 05, 2020 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Pop, Singer-Songwriter

A hardworking but relatively under-the-radar troubadour since the early 2000s, Jamie Lawson released a string of EPs and two LPs before coming to fame in 2015 as the first signing to Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records label. Since then, Lawson has supported the megastar on stadium tours, released three albums (including a UK number 1) and won an Ivor Novello. You’ll agree that there are crappier ways in which to start your forties but, following the whirlwind, it seems that Lawson - who’s recently become a father - is now ready for a somewhat quieter life.

Frazey Ford - You kin B the Sun (Album Review)

February 12, 2020 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Soul

With a matchless voice that somehow balances a DiFranco charm with a Piaf vibrato, Frazey Ford made her name as part of The Be Good Tanyas back in 1999. Two decades on, we find her three albums into a solo career that’s taken her far from those banjo-whispering beginnings and her latest, U Kin B The Sun, effectively completes a ten-year transition from folkstress to funk-soul sister.

Dustbowl Revival - Is It You, Is It Me (Album Review)

January 30, 2020 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Americana, Folk

Los Angeles-based six-piece Dustbowl Revival are fronted by vocalists Z. Lupetin and Liz Beebe and their expansive, genre-mashing new album Is It You, Is It Me follows their warmly received 2017 debut. The lineup has slimmed with the departure of mandolin player Daniel Mark and bassist James Klopfleisch - though the former co-wrote several tracks here - but the reduction in personnel hasn’t impacted on the ambition and fearless kitchen-sinkery of a record that refuses stylistically to fit in. If albums by artists as disparate as Jeff Finlin, Cake and Rusted Root rub shoulders uneasily in your record collection then Dustbowl Revival could be the missing link.

Jack Broadbent - Moonshine Blue (Album Review)

November 20, 2019 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Blues, Folk, Jazz, Singer-Songwriter

With the likes of the Montreux Jazz Festival “the new master of the slide guitar” and Bootsy Collins, “The real thang” singing his praises the casual observer might be fooled into thinking that Jack Broadbent was some kind of guitar-slinging wunderkind, storming out of the bayou on a mission to destroy all with his blazing guitar work. In reality, I’m guessing it’s pretty hard to find a bayou in Lincolnshire and Jack’s obvious guitar prowess turns out to be a small part of the story.

Son Of Town Hall - The Adventures of Son Of Town Hall (Album Review)

November 06, 2019 by Rich Barnard in Acoustic, Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

We’ve been rather taken with transatlantic duo Son Of Town Hall since catching them at Cecil Sharp House last year (review). The pair are made up of London-based singer-songwriter Ben Parker (in a past life, one half of Ben & Jason) and Santa Fe-based singer-songwriter and author David Berkeley. Here they are, eighteen months later touring the UK once more, this time in support of their long-awaited debut LP. Their live show can’t really be translated to record (you just have to go) but the album does its best to bring the uninitiated up to speed, with the aid of its accompanying newspaper inserts in which their tale is wittily woven.

Rachel Sermanni - So It Turns (Album Review)

August 19, 2019 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Rachel Sermanni’s third LP sees the Scottish singer-songwriter largely turning away from the dirty guitars that peppered 2015’s Tied To The Moon for a smoother, more grown-up outing, shifting the focus onto her arresting, intimate voice. So It Turns, the record Sermanni herself calls ‘folk-noir’ (it lives up to the label) was produced by Axel Reinemer and has been in the can for three years. Good things come to those who wait of course and, thankfully, So It Turns is now seeing the light of day via an independent release.

Karine Polwart's Scottish Songbook (Album Review)

July 29, 2019 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Pop, Singer-Songwriter

You probably never noticed, but a lot of the pop music you grew up on was born in Scotland. You can’t have been raised in the 80s without escaping Simple Minds; in the 90s without strumming along to Del Amitri, or in the noughties without tapping your toes to KT Tunstall. And now, multi-award-winning folk singer-songwriter Karine Polwart has drawn on these decades, among others, to bring you her latest release: Scottish Songbook. This celebration of the history of Scot-pop began when Karine gathered two dozen songs together for a live show she took to the 2018 Edinburgh Festival. A year on, eleven of those songs coalesce on an album that is reverent, revealing and - above all - rewarding.

The Iveys - Colors Of Honey (Album Review)

June 07, 2019 by Rich Barnard in Acoustic, Album Reviews, Americana, Folk

The Iveys are a bona fide family band, comprising two sisters, two brothers and one brother-in-law. The current five-piece lineup has built from the initial sibling duo of Arlen Ivey and Jessica Ivey Carr and Colors Of Honey, their new six-track release, will serve as their calling card as they embark on a very busy tour of their native Texas in June.

Glen Hansard - This Wild Willing (Album Review)

April 10, 2019 by Rich Barnard in 80s, Album Reviews, Americana, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

After three lauded solo records and countless packed-out shows across the globe, Glen Hansard has amassed laurels aplenty upon which to rest if he were that way inclined. Thankfully, it would appear he is not, as This Wild Willing represents a decisive step forward in the post-Once career of the onetime Frames frontman as he eases off on the Van Morrisonisms he’s become synonymous with and begins re-engaging with the boundary-pushing of his earlier work.

David Ian Roberts - Travelling Bright (Album Review)

March 14, 2019 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

It’s not often we come across a record as carefully crafted as Travelling Bright, the second full-length release from Welshman David Ian Roberts. It is an album in the truest sense - a journey - an immersive and hypnotic journey into a glittering world of acoustic delights. Travelling Bright is designed to be taken in at one sitting and is therefore fittingly available as a double LP, and if you’ve an hour to spare, not only could it take you places, it could also help you fall back in love with the forgotten act of sitting still and listening to some nice vinyl.

David Leask - Six in 6/8 (Album Review)

January 02, 2019 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Country, Americana

When David Leask reflects on the reasoning behind his latest release, “6/8 feels like a musical home to me, a signature of time, a sense of place” he sounds like a man at peace with his surroundings and the creative process. It’s hardly surprising then that the six songs on this fantastic EP are so impressive, even if the initial idea seems a little off-kilter. Six songs recorded in a 6/8 time signature might sound a little strange until you realise the great range that 6/8 allows, especially when coupled with superior tunes. If you’re wondering about 6/8 then think of it as a variation on a waltz—a lilt if you will—and you’ve got the idea. Many of your favourite songs will have been written in this time signature, trust me we’re not talking weird Frank Zappa approved strangeness here

Seth Lakeman - The Well Worn Path (Album Review)

November 28, 2018 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

It really is hard to believe that two years have passed since the release of the last Seth Lakeman album ‘Ballads Of The Broken Few’ (review) an album that found Seth working with folk trio Wildwood Kin on what would turn out to be a really terrific record. The album’s stripped back acoustic sound added an Americana style spin on Seth’s folk roots and the result was a record that still makes regular returns to the RGM stereo. In those two years Seth has toured ‘Ballads’ extensively often with Wildwood Kin along for the ride. He also took up Robert Plant’s offer of a spot in Plant’s Sensational Shape Shifters for a world tour that would find Seth pulling double duty as the opening act on occasion. You’d think that’d be enough to keep most people gainfully employed but Seth also found the time to record a new album ‘The Well Worn Path’.

Amy Ray - Holler (Album Review)

November 08, 2018 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Americana, Country, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

As one half of the Indigo Girls for over thirty years, Amy Ray’s feistiness and grit always served as a contrast and balance to Emily Saliers’ tenderness and sheen and this is doubtless what has made the duo such an enduring success. Ray has, by now, rightly earned her place as a member of folk rock royalty and on Holler, her sixth (who knew?!) solo record, her creative fires are burning as bright as ever.

Amigo The Devil - Everything Is Fine (Album Review)

October 26, 2018 by David Vousden in Album Reviews, Americana, Country, Folk, Heavy Metal, Singer-Songwriter

Danny Kiranos aka Amigo The Devil arrives on the scene with ‘Everything Is Fine’ and the one thing I can tell with absolute certainty is that things most definitely are not fine. In fact, we’re as far from fine as it’s possible to get. “This life is a joke and death is the punch line” gives you a good idea of Kiranos’ state of mind as Amigo The Devil. So join me, if you’d like to partake in an hour or so of Southern gothic murder folk country, with an occasional hard rock/metal left turn, because you never know things might turn out fine in the end, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

S.K. Wellington - Where The Earth Meets The Sea (EP Review)

September 20, 2018 by Rich Barnard in Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Americana

S. K. Wellington’s debut EP is the lovingly-nurtured baby of Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah Kemmers. It follows a long period of stepping back from her musical endeavours to stop, reassess and rekindle her creative fires. As a result there’s a confident, easy and nothing-to-lose vibe coursing through this four song collection which significantly contributes to its appeal.

Tom Baxter - The Other Side Of Blue (Album Review)

August 13, 2018 by Rich Barnard in Acoustic, Album Reviews, Folk, Singer-Songwriter

A decade and a half ago, Tom Baxter, was riding the wave of an acoustic singer-songwriter renaissance, championed by the New Acoustic Movement and Roadworks tours, which played a part in the successes of Tom McRae, Ben & Jason, Polly Paulusma and KT Tunstall. Like Tunstall, Baxter landed a major label deal but Columbia didn’t invest in him as a long-term prospect (Tunstall was, conversely, carefully developed by Relentless). Baxter was dropped after his debut Feather & Stone failed to cut the commercial mustard; a criminal state of affairs, given that the album was an incredible, hit-riddled record, dripping with giant string arrangements and emotional energy. The independently recorded yet equally strong Skybound followed in 2007 and spawned the single ‘Better’, a cover of which - for better or worse depending on your view - was a big hit for Boyzone a year later. Fast forward to 2018 and Tom Baxter - having been married, divorced and married again in that time - is back with The Other Side of Blue, a record that is devoid of all the whistle-and-bellery that adorned his first two outings. Every song features just a solo vocal with only guitar or piano for company. Brave? Foolish? Let’s find out…