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TALKING ALL THINGS AMERICANA

When Marty Stuart performed Hillbilly Rock at Bristol, Rhythm And Blues Festival in the USA recently it still crackled with a Buddy Holly-like popabilly energy. Stuart’s gray hair stood up like a rooster’s comb atop his head, and the black fringe on his jacket flew when he twirled back to the microphone after a guitar break
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JUST ANOTHER MOURNING

having been warned not to wander she now graces fields of tall red poppies in black and white films shot on an exotic island that could be a past or could be memory or could be the inevitable outcome of meeting a grieving widow on a day beneath a sky Picasso-blue rolling away with the ocean in wave after wave after wave of barely controlled emotion
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LOST COWBOYS

a life so immersed in creativity, that he became an excellent presenter of country music tv and radio documentaries. He was also, though, a much loved artist, leading a British country band that included Reg Meuross, a fine player and singer and hugely under-rated songwriter, and fiddle player Bobby Valentino, who would become ´the man who invented jazz.
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music, Mystique and MUSCLE SHOALS

The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon. Christopher M. Reali's in-depth look at the fabled musical hotbed examines the events and factors that gave the Muscle Shoals sound such a potent cultural power. Many artists trekked to FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound in search of the sound of authentic southern Black music--and at times expressed shock at the mostly white studio musicians waiting to play it for them. Others hoped to draw on the hit-making production process that defined the scene. Reali also chronicles the overlooked history of Muscle Shoals's impact on country music and describes the region's recent transformation into a tourism destination.
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HONOURS AND TRIBUTES for Nanci Griffith

A good compilation often works in more than one way – to the initiated, it offers new perspectives on familiar songs – to the uninitiated, it offers a way in to an artist through a more familiar third party. This collection does both and does both well and was released on 20TH September 2023.
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‘DIDN’T YOU USED TO BE SOMEBODY?’

The sell-out audience [I am reliably informed could have sold out at least 4x] included people in recovery, supporters of people in recovery, recoverists [recovery + activist] as well as actors and media types.