SIDETRACKS & DETOURS, Sunday 23rd August 2026, includes UK folk album charts and news. + we remember when Guy Clark told us that BUDDY MONDLOCK IS A SONGWRITER

SOUND ROOTS AND ENGLISH FOLK EXPO

Sharing their news of awards, charts, gigs and festivals,

Norman Warwick invites sidetracks & detours readers to PASS IT ON

August, die she must, as the harmonious voices of Paul & Arties once warned us.  But I believe that Simon and Garfunkel knew the changing seasons needn’t bring only chilly nights and darker days. Sound Roots and English Expo Folk have another carefully curated programme of folk concerts to provide some added warmth and merriment from September through to November.

We’ll soon be welcoming much-loved icons, master songwriters and a tour-de-force fiddler to some of Greater Manchester’s finest venues. Take a look at what’s in store below.

MIKE MCGOLDRICK & TIM EDEY
Sat 12 September | The Met, Bury

This special reunion of long-time friends brings together breathtaking virtuosity with pure musical magic. Former BBC Folk Awards Musician of the Year, master flautist and piper McGoldrick meets accomplished guitarist and accordion player Edey in this must-see celebration of Celtic folk music.

BRIGHT PHOEBUS REVISITED
Sat 12 September | Stoller Hall

Bright Phoebus, Lal and Mike Waterson’s 1972 folk-noir masterpiece, has long been recognised as one of British music’s legendary lost records. Bright Phoebus Revisited celebrates the cult folk album, with family members Marry Waterson and Eliza Carthy performing its songs alongside Daragh Lynch (Lankum) and other special guests.

TOM ROBINSON WITH ADAM PHILLIPS
Thu 24 September | Hallé at St Michael’s

Coming this autumn, Tom Robinson presents an evening of tall tales and top tunes from half a century working on the wilder fringes of the music industry! Joined by Adam Phillips, expect encounters with Alexis Korner, Ray Davies, Elton John, Peter Gabriel, Todd Rundgren, Eddy Grant and Brian Eno – alongside classics such as War Baby, Glad to Be Gay and 2-4-6-8 Motorway.

GRACE PETRIE
Sat 3 October | Aviva Studios

Irrepressible live force Grace Petrie returns to Manchester this autumn with a show encompassing an intimate solo set and a full band performance. Razor-sharp, heartfelt and fiercely uplifting, if you’re after songs of hope and solidarity, this is one you won’t want to miss.

RANAGRI
Sat 14 November | Hallé St Peter’s

Award-winning indie folk band Ranagri bring their signature cinematic, prog-infused folk music to Hallé St Peter’s this November. Promising soaring vocals, rich harmonies, driving rhythmic energy and masterful instrumentation, the four-piece delivers a sound that is both intricate and expansive.

RYAN YOUNG
Sun 22 November | Band on the Wall

After his jaw-dropping set at this year’s festival, virtuosic Scottish fiddle player Ryan Young will be making his triumphant return. Young will be joined by guitarist Louis Campbell (Sam Lee, Sam Sweeney) and together they will offer masterfully detailed explorations of their traditional repertoire, alongside highlights from Young’s high acclaimed new album.

FOLK ALBUM OF THE YEAR AWARD RETURNS.

Building on an incredibly successful launch, the vibrant folk music scene across Britain and Ireland will once again be celebrated through an award presented by music charity Sound Roots and the award-winning podcast Folk on Foot, following  the success of previous award winning folk artists and their albums. Created in 2025, the Folk Album of the Year Award recognises the most artistically accomplished work released within the relevant calendar year by artists who further, contribute to and celebrate contemporary and traditional folk, roots and acoustic music. Albums are selected by a distinguished jury of performers, promoters, journalists and broadcasters. Eight shortlisted 2026 albums will be announced in November, with the finalists performing at a live-streamed ceremony at Rochdale Town Hall on Tuesday 26 January 2027. The overall winner will then be revealed before an invited audience of musicians, industry professionals and folk fans. The award is supported by Rochdale Development Agency, which recognises the importance of championing exceptional artists and the vital role cultural initiatives play in enriching communities and preserving our cultural heritage and creating new roots.The announcement follows this spring’s inaugural event, where Barry Kerr was crowned the winner for his outstanding album Curlew’s Cry.

SUBMIT YOUR ALBUM

Submissions will open to artists and their representatives, including labels and publishers, on Friday 7 August at midday. The application deadline is 11.59pm on Friday 30 October 2026.

The Folk Album of the Year Award showcases the breadth and diversity of folk music across all four nations of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, recognising originality, artistic quality and cultural impact, regardless of commercial profile.

To find out whether your album is eligibleyou should check out the full terms and conditions, on line

Today, the Official Charts Company reveals the Official Folk Album Chart, produced by Sound Roots, featuring the Top 40 best-selling and most-streamed folk albums released during the July reporting period by British and Irish artists. Listen back to the Official Folk Albums Chart Show, presented by Folk on Foot, via their YouTube channel for the full rundown of new entries and the positional changes.

This month’s chart features five new albums in the Top 40. Those latest new entries and their chart positions are:

No. 6 – Damien Dempsey’s Holywell (Sony Music Ireland) – a deeply personal collection rooted in the Irish oral tradition, drawing on songs passed down through generations that Dempsey describes as, “like a holy well”, bringing healing through singing.

No. 8 – Sam Carter Sings Nic Jones – Live at Celtic Connections(Captain) – a live tribute celebrating the songs of revered folk singer Nic Jones. Throughout, Sam Carter’s performances showcase the captivating storytelling and innovative guitar work that have made Jones’s music so enduring.

No. 13 – Phil Odgers and John Kettle’s The War Is Over (Vinyl Star) – the duo’s second collection of Phil Ochs songs, inspired by world events and dedicated to Ochs’s enduring legacy of protest, resistance and political songwriting.

No. 20 – Cinder Well’s A Blooming Body (Hen House Studios) –Multi-instrumentalist Cinder Well’s fifth album expands her sonic palette through richly textured arrangements alongside lyrics that capture the, “kind of harsh mundanity that life can carry.”

No. 40 – Emily Portman’s Dominion of Spells (Hudson Records) – Portman’s luminous fourth record draws on ballads and folk tales to chart a heroine’s midlife journey through themes of burnout, motherhood, miscarriage and transformation.

The Official Folk Albums Chart is compiled by The Official Chart Company and produced by Sound Roots. The Official Folk Albums Chart Show is presented by Folk On Foot with the support of Sound Roots.

BUDDY MONDLOCK IS  A SONGWRITER

said Guy Clark

and Norman Warwick is forever grateful.

Buddy Mondlock (left) is a songwriter

In the winter of 1990 / 91 David Deverson, publisher and editor of the then Detours magazine,  wrote of how refreshing it is whenever we  are reminded  that there is a wealth of new talent around in our favourite genres of music, be it acoustic as was then, or Americana as it now is. It is often the case that these relatively unknown performers are already identified by their peer group and have the respect of the established hierarchy of the genre, most of whom offer them active encouragement..

The ways in which we first learn of these lesser names are myriad. For those of us who work in the supportive media it might be that a new name falls out in conversation in the way Guy Clark once mentioned  to me during an interview the name of Buddy Mondlock. Of course, once we have been given a recommendation, we journos set out in bloodhound-mode in search of new DNA. When I found the clues and gathered the evidence I learned, to my excitement and my embarrassment, that Mondlock had already had songs covered by the likes of Janis Ian (right) and Joan Baez.   

Nowadays, some thirty five years on, that ´unknown name  is part of today´s hierarchy: so much so that the opening sentence on his official web site states that Buddy Mondlock writes songs.

He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and Janis Ian (left), to name just a few. You might’ve heard his song “The Kid” (recorded by David Wilcox, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cry, Cry, Cry) and maybe even sung it yourself around a campfire. He draws you into his world – where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get your pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you might swim over the edge of the world if you’re not careful and where dreams that don’t come true still count.

A later album, Filament, finds him exploring some new territory, both sonically and rhythmically. Produced by Brad Jones, known for his creative approaches to singer/ songwriters, songs like Problem Solved and Sunlight In My Pocket are propelled along by drums and percussion. Others are painted with woodwinds and string arrangements. Buddy is at heart a storyteller and the songs cover a lot of territory too, ranging from a young artist who finds fame too soon in the title song, to the wonders and mysteries found in The Dark, a song he co-wrote with the great Guy Clark. When Buddy’s not on the road you can find him in Nashville but he grew up in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He didn’t have a troubled childhood. His parents were nice to him. They paid for guitar lessons when he was ten and they never said, “when are you going to get a real job?” He sang Crosby, Stills and Nash songs with his sisters and answered his little brother’s questions from the top bunk. A few years away at college puzzling over Homer and Plato and then he was back.

Living in the big city, this time, he was playing open mics at Chicago’s crucible for songwriters in those days, the famed Earl Of Old Town. He once opened for the amazing Steve Goodman there on New Year’s Eve. Buddy was 21. He says he could have walked out of there that night and gotten hit by a bus and he wouldn’t have felt like life cheated him at all.

When Buddy made his first trip to Texas from his native Chicago, Guy Clark heard him singing one of his songs under a tree at the Kerrville Folk Festival and liked it. So Guy went back to Nashville, opened the door and said, “listen to this kid, he’s good!” A publishing deal, and a U-Haul headed south, soon followed. People were starting to pay attention. In 1987 he was a New Folk Award Winner at Kerrville and he released his On The Line as his first album.

Over the next few years David Wilcox recorded “The Kid” on his first record for A&M. Buddy did some writing with this other new kid in town named Garth Brooks. Janis Ian heard him singing at the Bluebird Cafe and asked him if he’d like to write with her. Their song Amsterdam got recorded by Joan Baez. Nanci Griffith asked Buddy to sing on a show she was taping for Irish television. She ended up liking that song, Comin’ Down In the Rain, so much that she recorded on her Grammy Award winning collection Other Voices, Other Rooms. Garth became a star and Mondlock´s Every Now and Then ended up on his album The Chase.

Buddy was touring all over the U.S. by this time playing coffeehouses and the occasional festival (he’d become a regular on the main stage at Kerrville). And there were trips to Europe too. Buddy’s second album, produced by Steve Addabbo in 1994, got picked up by Son Records, a small label in Ireland started by the band U2, and he was well received on the island of poets. He’s toured there consistently ever since. 1996 was a good year. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded “The Kid” and then asked the kid himself to sing with them on a “Great Performances” TV special. He won a Kerrville Music Award for Song of the Year that autumn forThe Kid too.

Since then Mondlock released a string of critically acclaimed solo recordings on his own label and on EMI. And in 2003 Buddy toured North America and Europe with Art Garfunkel and Maia Sharp in support of their album, Everything Waits To Be Noticed,  which they wrote and recorded together as a trio.

In addition to writing and touring Buddy also teaches song-writing. Along with one day workshops across the US and Europe he has also been a staff instructor at the Swannanoa Gathering, the Kerrville Folk Festival Song School, the Sisters Folk Festival Song Camp and retreats like Ellis Paul’s New England Songwriter Retreat and Cedarsongs in Tennessee

Filament became his seventh album. In recent years Buddy has been writing songs with military veterans through a program sponsored by an organization called Music Therapy of the Rockies and he includes several of those songs in his shows (and one on his new album).

The first album of his that I bought was Poetic Justice, with its gorgeous self-penned title, and opening, track delivered in honeyed tones. I was hooked from then on and still have several of its tracks on my playlists in the office, including New Jersey Sunset and a song of a lifetime, Sarah Kills The Day, as well as Coming Down In The Rain. I saw him play on a short UK tour back in the day, and learned that not only is it correct to say  Buddy Mondlock is a songwriter, but it would also be true to describe him as an  eloquent and gracious communicator and stage performer.

And his mention of Maia Sharp set me out on to research of her career to date, as I hadn´t heard of her till now, and once again justified my long held belief that if I hear a musical recommendation from a considered source, I invariably come up with new names on my playlists.

He has been a constant in the music I listen to now anbd, of course, I am reminded of Guy Clark each time I listen to Buddy. So, as I re-visited his web site recently to help prepare this article, another name tumbled out on to the tsable. Maia Sharp (left) and her discography immediately immersed me in what sounded like an interesting anon of work.

“This has been such a powerful experience and I’m honoured to have been trusted with these stories of trauma and of triumph too,” Buddy said. in commendation of Maia Sharp (left) , and he should know as he has also collaborated with her on a new project, a musical called  The Girl In The Red Dress.

It includes several songs from their project with Art Garfunkel and a slew of new material from Buddy and Maia. Set in a world where The Leader has banished all colour as subversive, the story focuses on a young woman who must learn to believe in herself and comes to find that she can actually make a difference.

Furthermore, after four solo albums and one trio album (with Art Garfunkel and Buddy Mondlock), Maia Sharp has built a following through touring on her own and opening for such headliners as Bonnie Raitt, Keb’ Mo’, Patty Griffin and Art Garfunkel.

In spotlights, on national radio and television, penning songs for Bonnie Raitt, The Dixie Chicks, Trisha Yearwood, Cher and many more, in writing sessions with Carole King, Lisa Loeb, Jules Shear and David Wilcox, behind studio consoles producing for Garfunkel, Edwin McCain and others, Sharp has proven her ability to excel wherever talent manifests itself in music.

Her last album, Echo, was produced by Don Was, but after producing Edwin McCain’s latest album, Mercy Bound, as well as two songs for Art Garfunkel’s upcoming record, she elected to produce Change The Ending herself. She wrote or co-wrote all 11 tracks.

Producer Don Was says of Maia Sharp that she is ´one of America’s great singer-songwriters. Her storytelling runs profound and deep while honoring a pop tradition that urges you to sing along and feel good´.

“Maia is making some of the most innovative and soulful music around with songs that are head and shoulders above the rest´, says Bonnie Raitt. ´She has become one of my favorite artists…a brilliant album, start to finish.” – Bonnie Raitt

Four years ago, Maia Sharp achieved a lifelong ambition when Bonnie Raitt invited her to open for and perform with her on the road. It began when Raitt released Souls Alike, with three Sharp songs in the lineup. That album also featured Sharp’s backup on those and several other tracks, which led to her joining Raitt on tour.

Produced by studio legend Don Was, Sharp’s new album heralds her ascension into the spotlight after being embraced by Raitt, Carole King, the Dixie Chicks, Art Garfunkel, Keb’ Mo’, Terri Clark, Trisha Yearwood and many others who have recorded her songs.

“In the tradition of great female artists, Karla Bonoff, Bonnie Raitt, Christine McVie, Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLachlan…now enter Maia Sharp.” says Art Garfunkel

From this point, the secret is out and Sharp stands on her own – a uniquely gifted singer, writer and multi-instrumentalist whose peers are the most discerning artists in the business but whose music on Echo reaches out toward the wider world.

Change the Ending (right) is both intimate and varied. Sharp is a communicator, blessed with a broad vocabulary, verbal and musical. She writes conversationally, with an ear for finding poetry in direct expressions of emotion. The complexities of a relationship taking a wrong turn come alive over a strong medium-tempo groove and sharp melodic hook in the chorus of the album’s first single, “Me After You.” A similar theme launches on “Your Stepping Stone” with just a stinging acoustic guitar motif and a thigh-patted beat before morphing through a series of contrasting textures and feels. “Sober” sounds as the title suggests, a little fuzzy and woozy, though the message quickly takes an unexpected, ironic turn. And on “I See Cecelia,” which Maia penned with her father, the respected songwriter Randy Sharp, swinging brushes on the drums and sad but loveable Salvation Army style horns evoke the affection woven into her appreciative words.

While much of the material on Change the Ending is relatively new, some of it is more seasoned, particularly the songs that have already been covered by other singers. “Standing Out in a Crowd” is one example. Like many of Sharp‘s songs, it comes from her own experiences and observations, in this case regarding the loneliness that young girls in particular can feel when ostracized for being “different.” She might have sent out this message on an earlier album, if not for the fact that Trisha Yearwood released it first, several years ago. Change the Ending allows us even another glimpse into Sharp‘s artistry, through her saxophone solo on an instrumental remix of one track, “Buy My Love.”

Sharp grew up in Los Angeles, where she started playing local clubs while she was still in her teens. She gives a sly wink to her hometown’s biggest industry with the new album’s cover art. Filmmaking provides the perfect metaphor in the title track, as the narrator considers how a romance might have fared with a little rewrite. “It’s a beautiful story,” she observes ruefully in the chorus. “If you change the ending.”

“Sharp always leads with her heart and comes across as a performer worth getting to know,” said USA Today in a three-star review of Echo while NPR‘s “All Things Considered” hailed her as “a songwriter set to arrive” and The Washington Post called her “a sterling up-and-coming talent.”

I love it when names fall oiut in coversation !

BUDDY MONDLOCK IS A SONGWRITER

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 30^th AUGUST 2026

Too Darn Hot. Live Jazz

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 30^th AUGUST 2026

Too Darn Hot: live jazz

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 6^th SEPTEMBER 2026

Canary Cruising,…cool

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 13^th SEPTEMBER 2026

secretly recorded live gigs legitimised on line?

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 20^th SEPTEMBER 2026

Waiting For Godot and Music At Lunchtomes

SIDETRACKS & DETOURS SUNDAY 27^th SEPTEMBER 2026

r.i.p. David Alan Coe, songwriter and unreliable narrator