Music, Country

Doug Hoekstra - Blooming Roses

2 Oct 2008

ALT-FOLK COUNTRY Now several solo albums and 14 years into his career (not counting his pre-solo time with Chicago outfit Bucket No.6), Nashville-based Hoekstra returns with another set of whispering, easy-on-the-ear songs. While Dylan, Cohen and…

Calexico

4 Sep 2008

‘It’s not what some people have called a return to form, because there are new elements on the record,’ says Joey Burns, singer, songwriter and co-founding member (with percussionist John Convertino) of the idiosyncratic alt.country outfit Calexico.

Frank Satan In Person

Beguiling and bawdy drinking songs

14 Aug 2008

If you dig Tom Waits, Dean Martin and Hank Williams, then Frank Satan (pronounced ‘Say-tan’) is your man. The long-time alter ego of the Cameo Cinema’s general manager Ian Hoey is back after a lengthy break to regale audiences with a bawdy combo of…

Saddle up

31 Jul 2008

As a posse of spoof country and western acts rides towards the Fringe, Allan Radcliffe asks why songs about rednecks, guns and erections make for sublime comedy

A show of force - Edinburgh Military Tattoo

22 Jul 2008

A festival spectacle global in design is this year’s The Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which prepares once again to set its stall on the esplanade under the impressive backdrop of Edinburgh Castle, as it showcases the best military musicians from around…

25 things you might not know about Tom Waits

17 Jul 2008

The chance to see Tom Waits, one of the planet’s true music raconteurs, is worth £100 of anyone’s money. But did you know he once worked for the coastguard? If not, Jonny Ensall suggests you read on…

Tom Waits - Live Review

17 Jul 2008

Orpheum Theatre, Phoenix, Arizona, Wed 18 Jun The seldom touring ‘love or hate him’ artist transported his trademark whisky-soaked growl to the desert to kick off only his third tour of the decade. And, judging by his polished performance, one can…

Exposure - Ross Clark

3 Jul 2008

Looking like the bastard rockabilly son of a Proclaimer and with a singing voice like a shot of raw Glasgow bluegrass, 20-year-old Ross Clark’s exuberant, sweat-drenched live sets have been getting him a reputation. He sings brainy songs about girls and…

Chris Bradley - Voices

3 Jul 2008

COUNTRY ROCK (Splashing Duck) Edinburgh-based Chris Bradley’s biography is an impressive read, all tales of musical scholarships, first class honours studying Music at Newcastle University and – most memorably – forming Ukrainian folk groups in Kiev.

Marissa Nadler - live music review

5 Jun 2008

COUNTRY-FOLK Stereo, Glasgow, Tue 13 May Waif-like guitar-picking girls are ten a penny these days, what with your Cat Powers and your Bat for Lashes already well established. And like the sphere of male singer-songwriters, it’s a field which could…

Alabama 3 - Hits And Exit Wounds

22 May 2008

COUNTRY ACID HOUSE (One Little Indian) Most people when thinking of Alabama 3 will come up with one song: ‘Woke Up This Morning’, the theme tune to The Sopranos. This thorough retrospective of their ensemble’s six-album career will hopefully put the…

Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head

22 May 2008

COUNTRY POP (ATCO) To consider the pedigree of actors turned musicians is to consider a whole bunch of people walking the line between self-indulgence and inpsiration: David Soul, Richard Harris, Billy Bob Thornton, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Robert Downey…

Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

22 May 2008

COUNTRY (Drag City) During a recent encounter with David Berman, the frontman of this legendary, cult Nashville-based outfit let slip that this could be his last musical offering. If the notoriously mischievous interviewee is to be believed, then this…

The Felice Brothers

22 May 2008

The dual influences of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen may weigh heavy on this New York quartet’s self-titled debut album, but that’s not to say they’re without their own ideas. They tap into a similar vein of vivid, florid storytelling that the Boss…

Willard Grant Conspiracy

8 May 2008

Willard Grant Conspiracy, the disparate alt.country band led by the gravel-voiced Robert Fisher numbers in excess of 40 musicians from all over the world. Since Fisher started it all off in 1996, the group’s output has been prolific: seven full albums…

Willie Nelson

8 May 2008

COUNTRY Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Thu 8 & Fri 9 May There is a certain evergreen enthusiasm about Willie Nelson that makes him unmistakably a country musician. They all have it, or had it: Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash. It’s the blinding…

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

24 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/FOLK/BLUES (V2) Campbell and Lanegan’s Mercury-nominated debut was a one-trick pony, but it was a pretty cool trick. Campbell’s wispy whimper and Lanegan’s bourbon-soaked growl blended refreshingly over some old school folk and blues, but it…

Kathleen Edwards - Asking for Flowers

10 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/ROCK (Rounder) Like all the best Americans, Kathleen Edwards is actually Canadian, although you’d be hard pressed to tell on the basis of her third studio album. Her punchy-yet-tender, world-weary-yet-impassioned take on country and rock could…

Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl

10 Apr 2008

COUNTRY FOLK Classic Grand, Glasgow, Wed 26 Mar You can hear the smile in Kathryn Williams voice, an almost effortless, laconic talent that soars high, floats and then falls down to a blusey bellow. Williams sings about the simple but ineffable…

5 Reasons To Go See - Billy Joe Shaver

27 Mar 2008

1 He’s the real McCoy (and then some) The son of Texan cotton-pickers and moonshine-runners, BJS arrived in Nashville on the back of a cantaloupe truck after spells as a farmhand, sailor, rodeo bum, and lumber mill worker (he lost two fingers to the…

Brandi Carlile

13 Mar 2008

COUNTRY ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Thu 28 Feb It’s fairly rare to see a support act who will easily outlast a headliner, and even if the main attraction on this occasion was Newton Faulkner – an artist with all the staying power (and strangely the…

Philip Cohen Solal - The Moonshine Sessions

28 Feb 2008

COUNTRY (Ya Basta!) Solal is best known as the French DJ, composer and producer behind the electronica-tango fusion of Gotan Project, so this largely traditional country album comes as a surprise. Recorded in Nashville with a host of local…

Shelby Lynne - Just a Little Lovin’ – Inspired by Dusty Springfield

14 Feb 2008

COUNTRY (Lost Highway) We may be waiting forever for that Whiteout tribute album: most artists prefer to wrestle with back catalogues far sturdier than their own in these situations. Dusty Springfield’s greatest hits are only a hair short of genius…

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

31 Jan 2008

(New West) COUNTRY ROCK Any band with songs called ‘Daddy Needs a Drink’ and ‘You and Your Crystal Meth’ can’t be all bad, and so it proves, as Drive-By Truckers here provide a fantastically sprawling trawl through the Southern Gothic hinterland of…

Celtic Connections - Mindy Smith

17 Jan 2008

Two albums in, Mindy Smith is solidifying her reputation as one of America’s most affecting songwriters. 2006’s Long Island Shores showed her gentle touch and growing prowess as a writer. Her ethereal vocal style at first brings to mind Joni Mitchell…

Seasick Steve

17 Jan 2008

Grizzled hobo Seasick Steve tore it up on the live circuit through 2007. His one-man country blues is packed with uncooked honesty and impassion vocals: this is the real blues built from experience panhandling across the US. It’s hard to believe he…

Steve Earle

4 Jan 2008

You’ll know where Steve Earle lives if you can picture the famous cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Just up that New York street where Dylan huddled against the snow with Suzie Rotolo in 1962 is the apartment Earle shares with his wife, the beautiful…

The Parsonage

Choral folk country blues

29 Nov 2007

Choirs are not cool, right? Wrong. Glasgow 50-strong vocal ensemble The Parsonage have played at festivals including Indian Summer and Connect, contributed to Echo and the Bunnymen’s forthcoming new album and recorded an EP for release on Optimo’s…

The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Mountain Choir

20 Sep 2007

Naming albums is tricky business – you’re going to have to live with it for eternity, so when TAMGC (as they shall be know here for space reasons) named their album Fighting and Onions you just kind of knew they were a bit special. With a sound that is…

The Wilders

23 Aug 2007

It seems only reasonable that a band with a lead singer called Ike Sheldon and a fiddle player called Betse Ellis should dress in sparkling white ten gallon hats, hail from Kansas City, Missouri and play honky tonk, hill billy music like they’ve just…

O’Death

Head Home

9 Aug 2007

ALT.COUNTRY O’Death are five guys with barely a shirt between them, who, despite hailing from New York, evoke the deep south in their punk country songs: toothless yokels and moonshine-fuelled barn dances. Greg Jamie’s weathered vocals swings from…

Various

Putumayo presents Americana

1 Aug 2007

The Putumayo label normally specialises in championing hitherto unsung musical styles from the far flung corners of the globe, collecting them and presenting them in lush, skillfully annotated packages.

*Hitlist

3 Jul 2007

• T in the Park 80,000 folks have over 100 reasons on stage to get down this weekend, from Arctic Monkeys to Wu-Tang Clan (pictured) and all in between. See full running order . Balado, Fri 6-Sun 8 Jul. (Rock & Pop) • The Skids After Green Day and…

Records - Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs

9 Apr 2007

ALT.COUNTRY Following her departure from Thee Headcoatees, this is Holly Golightly’s 14th studio effort, and after successful collaborations with Jack White, Mudhoney and Rocket From The Crypt she now teams up with long-time bandmate Lawyer Dave to…

Feature - Dolly Parton

Hello Dolly

12 Mar 2007

‘It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.’ This oft-repeated line from Dolly Parton’s onstage repertoire has been heard from Nashville to Newcastle. But just because Parton can laugh at herself doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be taken seriously. She is in…

Willie Nelson

15 Jan 2007

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 He’s a country music legend Dozens of albums, a string of hit singles (he wrote ‘Crazy’, the Patsy Clyne one though not the Gnarls Barkley one, sadly), countless awards, half a century of outsider genius. The 73-year-old hippy…

Be Good Tanyas, The

The Be Good Tanyas

11 Nov 2006

Bluegrass, folk and country from all girl trio The Be Good Tanyas. Trish Klein, Frazey Ford and Samantha Parton play heart-breaking Americana and traditional alt.country standards, imbued with humanity and cracked gothic ambience straight from the…

Porch Song Anthology, The - CD review

The Porch Song Anthology

4 Sep 2006

The Porch Song Anthology, Spell of the Trembling Earth - CD review