Ninian Dunnett

Alasdair Roberts, The Low Anthem and Buffy Sainte-Marie set for Celtic Connections

7 Jan 2010

With Alasdair Roberts, The Low Anthem and Buffy Sainte-Marie all featuring, the Celtic Connections festival just keeps going from strength to strength, says Ninian Dunnett

Sweet Bells - Kate Rusby

9 Dec 2009

(Pure) If you missed its under-promoted first release a year ago, this is a lovely Christmas tonic, drawing on the carol-singing traditions of South Yorkshire to make the familiar charmingly new. The airy innocence of Kate Rusby’s girlish delivery…

Rhett Miller - Rhett Miller

4 Dec 2009

(Serial Lady Killer Records) With Ryan Adams disappointingly adrift, there’s a vacancy for a maverick rock troubador – and this is Rhett Miller’s strongest application to date. Boyishly pretty at 39, and with a fey edge to his warm tenor, the Old…

Nick Lowe - Quiet Please – The New Best of Nick Lowe

5 Mar 2009

POP Curtis Stigers sang ‘What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?’ on the silly-selling soundtrack to The Bodyguard in 1992, and Nick Lowe turned into a millionaire. And that’s how it’s been for him. Never really much of a front man…

The Heavy Circles - The Heavy Circles

8 May 2008

ROCK/POP (Dynamite Child) Twenty years after the funky quirks of ‘What I Am’, Edie Brickell’s voice retains its girlish appeal: dreamy soaring, slacker tantrums and all. This time round, though, it’s her husband Paul Simon’s son Harper who is setting…

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…

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…

Colombiafrica

20 Sep 2007

WORLD Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land (Riverboat Records) The title and artwork evoke early Dr John, but this exuberant album was brewed in a much bigger melting-pot than New Orleans. Like the original bluesmen travelling to London to record with their…

Linda Thompson

20 Sep 2007

FOLK Versatile Heart (Rounder/Universal) Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Martin and Eliza Carthy and a Johnsonless Antony combine to further the leisurely comeback of the wonderful veteran folkie after 2002’s Fashionably Late. But this is not an album…

Martin Simpson

Album

16 Jul 2007

FOLK MARTIN SIMPSON Prodigal Son (Topic) Simpson may be an enthusiast - he includes notes on his guitar tunings - but he is no purist. His enquiring ears have kept him at the interesting edge of the folk scene since he was a genuine…

Eddi Reader - album review

Eddi Reader

29 Jan 2007

FOLK After her triumphant homecoming with the best-selling Sings the Songs of Robert Burns, this new collection finds one of Scotland’s best voices continuing to mine the traditional vein in the company of folk heroes like John McCusker, Phil…

Music from the Films of Martin Scorsese - CD review

Various

4 Sep 2006

Various, Music from the Films of Martin Scorsese - CD review