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New Album Reviews

October 5, 2025 Stephen Averill

Kashena Sampson Ghost Of Me Mule Kick

‘This is an album about ignoring the bullshit and doing what’s authentic to me. Forget the rat race. Forget the bad relationships. Forget trying to please everybody. I’m tired of doing that. I wanted to do something for myself, and that’s what Ghost Of Me became,’ announces Kashena Sampson on the release of her third studio album.

Typical of many of her neighbours, peers, and friends, who represent the enormous musical talent pool residing in East Nashville, Sampson is working tirelessly to survive in an unforgiving industry. If the release of her 2021 album TIME MACHINE was dogged with misfortune when her income stream was severed after a tornado struck East Nashville and partially destroyed The Basement East, where Sampson worked part-time, at least the writing, recording and release of GHOST OF ME was relatively trouble-free. Written in 2018 and recorded in 2019, that genre-hopping album, TIME MACHINE, was a personal reflection on hard times, dysfunctional relationships and isolation. GHOST OF ME is equally autobiographical but with a refreshing sense of defiance, acceptance, and a ‘this is me, like it or not’ attitude 

As she had done in the past, Sampson engaged Grammy-nominated producer and multi-instrumentalist Jon Estes (Rodney Crowell, Kacey Musgraves, Joss Stone, John Paul White) to oversee the production and mixing duties alongside his contributions on bass, cello and keyboards. If her previous albums flirted between folk, rock, and Americana, there is more consistency here than in those previous recordings. Laced with reverb, synths, screeching guitars, thumping bass lines, hypnotic and layered vocals, the nine tracks take her sound further into a much darker side of indie folk.

Despite the often harrowing subject matter addressed, the album is punctuated by numerous upbeat musical moments. Typical is the opening and title track. The sonically uplifting and dramatic arrangements almost camouflage the song’s confession of despair bordering on hopelessness (‘Don’t want to lose myself, the future's growing dim. Oh, I can’t hold back, the feelings finally win’). Equally spacey is Phases, which follows the title track. A co-write with Caroline Spence, it could be an immediate response to the title track with a ‘note to myself’ reminder that bleak times do eventually pass. Spence also receives a songwriting credit on Rearview Mirror, a song that speaks to eventually recognising controlling behaviour and extricating oneself from that incapacitating environment. The boundaries are pushed out even further in the grungy and pleading God (‘Can you help me find a god I believe in, can you help me with my pain’).  

It's not all foot firmly on the gas, and the mid-tempo tearful ballad Fucked Up Love emphasises Sampson’s ability to hit notes well outside the range of many. The Awakening, one of three inclusions written with her sister Jolana, also showcases Sampson’s vocal flair before she signs off on an upbeat and heavily melodic note with recollections of happier times in Thick as Thieves.

GHOST OF ME may have found Sampson drawing from despair, but there is an angelic pureness to her vocals, which gives the songs an ethereal, almost spellbinding, quality. A most impressive project that hopefully will get the attention that it richly deserves.

Declan Culliton

Various Artists It’s All Her Fault: A Tribute To Cindy Walker Hummin’bird

Songwriter, singer and dancer Cindy Walker had over five hundred of her songs recorded, four hundred of which made the top forty in either the country or pop charts. This statistic is even more impressive when you consider that this was achieved over a period of fifty years. Artists who recorded her songs included Bob Willis, Ernest Tubb, Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, and The Byrds. In many cases, Walker wrote specifically for certain artists, successfully tailoring the compositions to suit both the artist and the market.

The motivation behind the Grammy-winner Grey DeLisle's executive produced project arose when she became aware that Walker’s childhood home in Maxia, Texas was in dire need of refurbishment before it became beyond repair. As a result, the streaming proceeds from the album will be donated to the Cindy Walker Foundation to contribute towards the renovation costs of the house.

Thirteen of Crawford’s songs are included on the album, from a broad range of female artists. From the seventy-five-year-old (and still as energetic as ever!) Rosie Flores (You Don’t Know Me) to more recent country breakthrough artists, such as Kimmi Bitter (Hey, Mr Bluebird) and Summer Dean (Don’t Talk To Me About Men), the common denominator is the quality of their vocal contributions, which do full justice to Walker’s writing.   

Vocalist and fiddle player Katie Shore, currently a standout member of Asleep at the Wheel, opens the record with the appropriately named You’re From Texas. It’s not a coincidence that many of the contributors also hail from Walker’s home state of Texas. They include Brennen Leigh, who is joined by DeLisle on the duet You’ve Got My Heart Doing A Tap Dance, Kelly Willis who takes on I Don’t Care, Mellissa Carper with Take Me In Your Arms (And Hold Me), Jolie Holland (Don’t Be Ashamed Of Your Age), and Western Swing historian and multi-instrumentalist, Ginny Mac (The Day You Left Me).

The other contributors include country and folk legend Gail Davies (The Warm Red Wine), the silver-voiced Mandy Barnett, Southern Gothic vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Amythyst Kiah (Goin’ Away Party), and rockabilly singer Mozzy Dee (It’s All Your Fault).  

So much more than simply a fundraiser for a worthy cause, the album captures everything vital about Texan roots music. Western swing, classic country, jazz, rockabilly and heartbreaking ballads are the order of the day in what is a fitting recognition of one of the Lone Star State’s most prolific and successful songwriters.

Declan Culliton

Waylon Jennings Songbird Son of Jessi /Thirty Tigers

SONGBIRD is the first of three albums to be released of previously unknown recordings by Waylon Jennings. The discovery of this album and other recordings occurred when Waylon’s son, and three-time Grammy-winning producer, Shooter Jennings was sifting through numerous high-resolution multitrack transfers of Waylon’s personal studio recordings. If the intention was to unearth a song or two that may not have been released during his father’s lifetime, what he discovered was a treasure chest of recordings from the period 1973 to 1984.

Having won his battle in 1972 against RCA to record his own music in his own studio, Waylon Jennings was at the peak of his career and recorded no fewer than thirteen albums in those eleven years from 1973 to 1984. His longtime backing band, The Waylors, featured up to twenty members during its lifetime. Still, during the period of these recordings, it was arguably at its strongest, including drummer and co-producer Richie Albright and Ralph Mooney on steel guitar. Also guesting at the time were Jessi Colter and Tony Joe White.

The quality of the production is extraordinary, given that Shooter only added minimal touches to the original recordings. In doing so, he invited surviving members of Waylon’s band, Gordon Payne (guitar), Jerry Bridges (bass), Barny Robertson (keyboards) and backing vocalist Carter Robertson to contribute. Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Munroe added additional backing vocals.

I’d Like To Love You Baby doesn’t stray too far from J.J. Cale’s original version, with a similar vocal delivery, but features warm backing vocals from Jessi Colter. The title track elevates Christine McVie’s soft rock ballad to an altogether new level. Similarly, the Johnny Rodriguez-penned The Cowboy (Small Texas Town) plays out as if it were written for Jennings during the height of his ‘outlaw’ period. As you would expect, also included is a ‘drinking’ song, and I Hate To Go Searching Them Bars Again ticks that box and ‘tears in your beer’ ballads include (I Don’t Have) Any More Love Songs and the album closer and string-laden Dink’s Blues.

It’s no exaggeration to say that SONGBIRD can stand side by side with Waylon Jennings' finest. Listening to this album is more than a nostalgic experience; it's a reminder of the genius of an artist who could take a song and make it sound as if it were written specifically for his interpretation.

Declan Culliton

Kolton Moore & The Clever Few A Place That I Call Home Motion & Thought

Taking life as it comes, but also seriously, Kolton Moore delivers a new set of songs that are a deep look into his own life and times. Ably assisted by his band The Clever Few (Ryan Wilcox, Matt Gumley, Sam Jones and Aaron Dowd - guitar, bass, keyboards and percussion respectively) and by top-notch production from Matt Ross-Spang. This represents a hard-fought look at coming of age and the road it took to bring him to this particular place where his journey has brought him. There is an overall sense of roots rock in the arrangements, which draw from a number of contemporary sources but manage to fit together compellingly. Keyboards and electric guitar are pleasingly present to set a dynamic tone over the solid rhythm section.

Home is the operative word here and the connotations that it conjures. Different, perhaps, for everyone, but with enough understanding of the sentiments for the listener to find common ground. So, this feels like something real, lived, and learned from. The title song opens the album, and immediately Moore's voice conveys a sense of authenticity, as well as a defining delivery that is a key point throughout the ten tracks. Many of the songs are a testament to a lifestyle that is often conducive to making this difficult, to maintaining relationships, and ultimately, to embracing love and fatherhood. When We Were Young and Lifetimes And Second look back at some of the crazy things done and often regretted as one travels through the art of growing up. The latter notes how many things take a lifetime to acquire yet can be lost in seconds.

The theme is revisited many times as the album progresses. Just Like That is a realisation of what actually matters, while noting that 'the hands of time can’t be turned back,' and that things you treasure can be gone 'just like that.' Finding higher ground and learning how to swim are essential if you want to survive what might be coming in The Flood. How easily things can turn and realising that you can be your own worst enemy, is conveyed with a slow, moody delivery in Self-Destruct. Yet, knowing that is an important step in making changes. 

Strawberry Thief is a gentler appreciation of what the presence of a child can bring to a relationship, and for an understanding of the small things that make life what it is. There is a poignancy there that is both touching and rewarding. Moore's voice is passionate and yet understated. Closing out the album in a slow and soulful way is This Train. It finishes the album in a more meditative mood. An album that finds all involved meshing together in a way that can only be seen as a beneficial time for all, in what must have seemed like home at the time.

Stephen Rapid

Daniel Meade Time Rolls By From The Top

This is a solo album, in that all the songs (bar one) are written, performed and recorded by Daniel Meade. A quick visit to his Bandcamp page reveals his extensive back catalogue of consistently interesting and satisfying releases from the Glasgow multi-instrumentalist, which means a very productive output of nineteen albums in thirteen years. While that attribute is notable in itself, it is his vocal delivery that is one of the most immediately distinctive elements of his work. The songs themselves are often personal observations of where his life and times are at this particular moment in time. The title itself sums up the fact that nothing is standing still, and life continually drifts by like a river full of inconsistent pointers for the way the future might unfold and for the times that have gone by. These are thoughts that consider the nature of friendship, what being a father means and how individual relationships might unfold. So, in this case, that means Meade himself is pretty much front and centre in these songs.

They are delivered in a largely stripped-down setting of voice and acoustic guitar, with some additional embellishments, such as piano and percussive elements, that keep you interested and attentive. Lyrically, Meade knows how to express these observations clearly, and in many ways, the themes have a broad, common appeal, as these are songs that relate to a certain understanding of how life changes and can move forward. Overall, the mood and tempo follow a similar pattern that is perhaps closer to folk-blues than anything else. But it’s clear that these arrangements are the right way for these recordings to be heard.

These are the questions to be asked of all of us as we navigate and explore the possible answers. There is also a lot of hope to be found here, as evidenced by lines like “there is magic everywhere, I feel the fire in the air … if you aim for the sky you can learn how to fly” (Always The Right Time). Which are balanced against some darker thoughts.“I’m hanging on for what it’s worth, but what it’s worth ain’t worth that anymore” (Life is Always Loading). “I found God in a country song, told the priest and he said I’m wrong … I need love, I need for someone to tell me where it all went wrong” (The Jumped Up Trumped Monday Blues). His cover of Leave The Light On For Me ends the album with a sense of love and belief that is readily apparent throughout.

I’ve always enjoyed the skill and thoughtfulness that Meade has put into his work. He continues to do so under limited financial restraints but still puts his heart and soul into his chosen career. He has worked as a sideman, which has allowed him to play in some very substantial venues with well-known artists, but he happily returns to home recording and small venues to find an audience for his music. This is something to be grateful for in any singer/songwriter, as it shows that they are doing it for the right reasons. 

Stephen Rapid

Dan Whitaker Pulling Up Stakes Empty Highway

Recorded and mixed in Austin, this is a singer-songwriter with a traditionally minded country music feel, setting out his stall. Whitaker is a new name to me, and while he is trading an already well-worn trail, he is, I suspect, knowingly not going to set the Internet alight as the next new sensation. Instead, he is carrying on as he intends to, writing and performing his work in and around Austin and Texas to an appreciative audience. He doubtless has a local fan base and some regular gigs that are a part of that scene. He is doing so on his own terms with a solid group of players around him. In this recording, they are fleshing out his songs (all but one written by Whitaker and that one he co-wrote) and make substantial and effective contributions throughout. He is no fresh newcomer but has some years and memories under his belt. This is his fifteenth release, and with that, he is undoubtedly honing his skills and aims with each release. It is good to see an artist continuing to perform and record their own music despite the current difficulties so many are facing in trying to get their music heard in the broader context.

The twelve songs here are easy to digest and to appreciate. Good Times Gone From The Past uses the pedal steel (Price Porter) in a way that highlights the sense of how things can change, even just in reflection. Whitaker himself adds guitars, harmonica, keyboard, and dulcimer, so he is very much at the heart of these recordings. On occasion, they take a slightly different approach to their influences, as seen in the instrumental New Morning Song, which features some Fifties-style guitar that is refreshing and demonstrates the band's versatility, showing how they can stretch out as required. Wheat Filled Scene is also an instrumental (whose opening riff reminded me of an early Donovan song - but maybe that’s just me). As is Yellow Butterfly, which utilises the rhythm section of Gary Feist and Tony Scarano effectively.

This is not the turbo country I hear from some of the newer Texas bands, but something that might be approbate as closer to a Don Williams than to a Cody Johnson. I Still Don’t Know Why is an upfront country song that has sadness at its heart but is another track that comes together nicely with its melody and beat. The final track is an ode to the rigours of travel and being away from home (though actually not that far away) in Couple Of Towns From Here, and it joins a set of worthy songs that are about what it means to be a regularly touring musician. Hopefully, Dan Whitaker won’t be pulling up stakes anytime soon but will continue to entertain on the dance floors of Texas and beyond.

Stephen Rapid

Tim Grimm Bones Of Trees Cavalier

This Folk troubadour was born in Ohio back in 1960, and he has been releasing solo albums since the turn of the century. This new release represents close on twenty albums from the pen of an artist/musician who is considered among his peers as right up there with the greats of contemporary singer-songwriters over past decades.

He is also a well known actor and has been appearing in movies as far back as the 1980s with credits to his name such as Steel Magnolias, The Client, Backdraft and Superman. Whether creating on the screen or on the printed page, there is no doubting the artistic nature of this virtuoso who is also the founder of a company that runs Scottish Folk tours on a regular basis.

The eleven songs included on this new album boast a range of players across the tracks, with the talented Sergio Webb (banjo, dobro, guitars, mandocello), Chief (bass), Nate Borofsky (piano), Jono Manson (vocals, percussion), Dougie Pincock (pipes, flute, whistle, bodhran), Susan Hyde Holmes (bass), and a whole array of guest vocalists including Beth Malcolm, Jon Brooks, Alissa Branch, Paul McKenna, and Natanya Mason taking their turns to contribute.

Opening song Up In the Attic references a craftsman who held an artifact of an angel in his room in memory of (perhaps) a lost child ‘There’s a chair and a table and a wooden box, And in the distant corner lies a broken clock, From the bones of trees in a craftsman’s hands.’ The album title is included in these words. Another type of ageing is the theme of Getting’ Older with the life lessons learned hopefully easing our exit point ‘And the things that we miss, they may never come back, Why not lift up our heads and look at the sky, the birds and the forests and the life that goes by, It’s out in a moment, It’s gone in a breath, We think there’s more time but this is all that we get.’

In the U.S.A. is a song about gun violence and school shootings with the character venting his frustration at the laws that continue to allow the killing of innocents ‘I don’t want to feel like I’m in jail, They’re building up these walls, Metal detectors in the halls, I don’t want to feel like I’m in jail.’  The search for remnants of the past is part of the story on Hunting Shack and a memory of purchased land that has been passed down the generations. An original hunting shack has long since been lost to the march of time, and Tim Grimm is on a mission to discover it ‘What man may build out in the woods, Nature takes it back, I love these kinds of mysteries, Like the missing hunting shack.’ There is a touch of Johnny Cash in the song arrangement and the vocal delivery, which of course adds an authenticity to the tale.

Barbed Wire Boys looks at rural America and the lives spent tending to the land; generations of young men, tied to the family farm and running barb wire fencing ‘’Well there’s a blink of the eye, There’s a catch in the voice, That is the unsung song of the barbed wire boys.’ On The Mists Of Ennistymon the plight of the emigrant trails from Ireland to foreign lands is reflected in the longing for a home that can never be rediscovered ‘We all come from somewhere else, From travellers of old, And some of those laid down the stones that line these winding roads.’ Powerful imagery and a fine example of the sophisticated songwriting and storytelling of Tim Grimm.

The Christmas Truce of December 1914 during World War One is the subject of Christmas In the Trenches, a very poignant look at the absurdity of war ‘Soon one by one on either side walked into no-mans land, With neither gun nor bayonet, We met there hand to hand…That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame, And on each end of the rifle we are all the same.’ The gentrification and land development of rural America is part of Bow and Arrow with local resentment palpable ‘Pickups with big wheels all jacked up, Jack-offs at the wheel, They don’t seem to think about nothin’ or give a damn about the air that I breathe.’ Turning the land into fashionable summer homes.

In the strangest twist of fate, there is a sad tale of Woody Guthrie living in Brooklyn and paying rent to his greedy landlord… a man by the name of Fred Trump. It’s often said that fact is stranger than fiction and here is the perfect example. Woody wrote a song about it, titled Old Man Trump and it  describes the racist housing practices and discriminatory rental policies of his experience. Imagine the dichotomy of the spokesman for the proletariat, paying his living wage to the greedy capitalist regime perpetuated by the landlord class. The song Woody’s Landlord Revisited is a direct reference to this salutary tale and Tim Grimm again showcases his talent with the pen, which is said to be mightier than the sword, after all  - ‘Now the circus has come to town, and all the freaks are running round, It breaks our hearts and makes us numb, to see the inmates run the asylum.’

As the album winds down, things are brought up to date with the political statement on Broken Truth and the state of the nation ‘If you follow him, And you can count to seven, If you call yourself a Christian and you believe in heaven, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Pride, Envy, Gluttony and Wrath, It’s clear as day – they stormed the house, All the hate inside his little mouth, Damn that man.’  The final song is Hadley’s Banjo and it’s a tribute to the line of musicians who stand in the place of speaking truth against all the inequalities in society. A banjo handed down with Sergio Webb namechecked in the words as the perfect recipient to continue the magical gifts that music shares.

There are two cover songs included with Christmas In the Trenches (John McCutcheon), and Barbed Wire Boys (Susan Werner) while all other songs are written by Tim Grimm. Jono Mason engineered, and the entire project is a fine example of the colour and depth that surrounds master craftsmen at their work. An essential purchase.

Paul McGee

Joe Nolan Luv In the Real World Beach House

This has real depth and quality, an album that engages and delivers a timeless set of ten songs which linger far beyond the initial listening experience. The opening track is Wake Up Sleepy Anna with superb string arrangements and background voices as a perfect example of this excellence. It conjures images of a savour of sorts who can instil a sense of value and worth into the daily struggle of modern society and deliver some solace to its troubled masses ‘Wake up little Anna, The world needs your love today, Wake up sleepy Anna, Your sunshine moves the clouds away.’ Anna could be representative of the innocence of a little girl or she may be a fictitious ruler who has benevolence as her guide. The choice is yours. The song reminds me of a Willy Vlautin tune in the delivery and in the atmospheric, restrained melody of the arrangement.

Too Much Time To Kill is a plea from a tired character who has seen too much of life. It suggests that a moment of reckoning is pending ‘ I’ve got one bullet left, I’m gonna shoot it in the dark, Soon as the sun sets, Over this rusted out heart.’ Possibly a suicide or a crime is about to happen? The challenge in the guessing is part of what elevates Joe Nolan as a songwriter. This is album number eight in a solo career that began back in 2009 and that has seen eight album releases to date, plus a number of EPs and singles. He just keeps honing away at his craft and getting better with each new release; nuance and subtle hints populating his words.

Half A Tear, Half A Grin is a song that captures the pain of leaving ‘As I’m leaving, As I go, I’m so scared of tomorrow.’ On the track Been Here Before we are looking back in a dream sequence where ‘All that’s happening has already been, Crashing into waves of doubt.’  The song Blood On the Pages is in honour of the myriad musicians who continue to eek a living out of touring in support of their compulsion to keep chasing the flame. The Covid lockdown did not help their plight to continue in an industry that works on the basis of sporadic income at best ‘We paid our dues in all these barrooms and broken stages.’

Rebound sees the singer wondering on the price of love and the fallout from relationships undefined ‘If I was your cigarette, Your hit and quit it then, I’ll be your bad habit, Then disappear like magic, If I was your playboy, Your broken little toy, And then you say can we be friends, Send it in a drunken text.’ One of the highlights is Modern Day Melancholy and the fear that nothing adds up anymore ‘Another product of inherited sadness, Modern day melancholy, Are we losing touch?’

I’m discovering new layers on each listening and the sublime musicianship adds greatly to the spacious sound of the production, courtesy of Tyler Chester, who also plays an array of instruments on the songs. Jay Bellerose and Griffin Goldsmith share drum and percussion talents, Sebastian Steinberg plays upright bass, Nigel Gale plays bass, Dylan Day provides electric and acoustic guitars, John Arndt creates string arrangements, Sara Watkins is on fiddle and backing vocals, Nataya Nolan also sings backing vocals, and Joe Nolan contributes all lead vocals, guitars and harmonica..

Daffodil speaks of a romance that looks to endure, as if born into existence in the days of youth, and Anna makes an appearance in the lyric, casting doubt on her actual role in these songs; perhaps she is a muse to the writer? The Maze is a reflective look at the faults that we all have and the weaknesses that are manifest in our characters as we grow ‘I’m caught in the maze, Everything’s going wrong, Would you show me the way.’   

The final track is When They Call Your Name and is Dylanesque in structure and delivery. Colourful imagery in the lyrics and obscure couplets to blur the true meaning ‘So many things we must come to accept, So many things we will never know, So take a death grip on the season my love, Cuz someday one of us will let go, We’re suspended on this mystery beam of light, That defies all time and space, But tell me who’s the master of you and I, When will they call our names?’ It strikes me as a song about mortality above all, our place in the grant design and the fragility of love.

This album is going to feature in many favourite lists at the year end, and for me it’s yet another example of the wonderful talent that lies beneath the glare of the mainstream. A songwriter of great expression and certainly one that will continue to delight all listeners.

Paul McGee

Annie Keating Band Live Self Release

This live album is currently being released on all social media platforms and in all formats, to capture the superb dynamic of Annie Keating with her stellar band of musicians when she tours in Europe. The band are based in the UK and join up with Annie whenever she can make the trip to foreign shores for semi-regular appearances and visits.

Featuring Annie Keating (vocals, acoustic guitar), Joe Coombs (electric, slide guitar), Jamie Dawson (drums, percussion), and Scott Warman (electric, acoustic double bass); the eleven tracks chosen span five albums in the storied career of this very talented musician, singer, and songwriter. Her number of studio recordings since a debut in 2004 total nine albums, added to with a variety of EPs and singles. THE BELMOT album from 2008 is the most represented here with four tracks, followed by the more recent BRISTOL COUNTY TIDES from 2021 with three tracks; the former, something of a breakthrough album, while the latter was written during the Covid lockdown.

Annie’s last studio album was Hard Frost from 2023 and two songs are included in the set. The sound is quite superb and the electricity of the performance does not suffer in the excellent production and mixing of Simon Allen, who recorded shows at the Little Rabbit Barn in Essex over two nights. The quality of the musicianship is top drawer and the warm atmosphere certainly helps to elevate the performance on these songs. The guitars soar in the delivery, the rhythm section locks everything down tight and the vocal performance from Annie is terrific. She has lost none of her power or range over the 25 years in playing numerous shows across America and Europe, with her personality shining through at every turn.

Portents of doom on the opener Storm Warning has the band playing fluently from the off, urgent guitar in the dynamic, and the superb guitar of Joe Coombs a highlight. On the gentler For the Taking there is a more acoustic approach with the lyrical playing of Joe Coombs again a key feature on a song about living in the moment. There is such clarity in the recording, and the cool groove on Third Street captures the comings and goings on a local neighbourhood street. There is a great understanding among these musicians, elevated by the sense of independent attitude in Annie’s vocal, like a mix of Bonnie Raitt and Joan Jett at the microphone.

The softer side of her fine vocal tone is highlighted on the song Belmont that captures youthful memories of learning guitar for the first time with close friends in the city districts ‘ My Daddy couldn’t understand why I’d waste my time playing guitar, he said “change your clothes, go get a lob, don’t be such a goddam bleeding heart.”’ Little did he know that the seed had already been sown and that tree was only going to grow strong on one singular path. Back to the rocking side of Annie on the addictive On the Road By Ten and the life of a road-warrior ‘ I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, Out until dawn and on the road by ten.’ A code of living tough, always focusing on the next tour stop and the next show.

Marigold reflects upon getting out of your own way and looking for stimulation in trying to keep a body from overthinking things ‘Maybe it’s time for no more sad songs, I’ll leave them in the past where they belong, I cut my hair and painted it gold.’ Again, some great band interplay elevated by more inspired electric guitar.  Finding connection is partly uncovered on Kindred Spirit and the recognition of something in common between two people on a chance meeting ‘Born into that kind of blue, That couldn’t help but shape you, I know, I know, because I was too.’ It’s a slow burn arrangement with the playing on the cutting edge of restrained energy.

Both Looking For Trouble and Lovesick Blues are more recent songs, taken from the Hard Frost album and the former would not  be out of place on any Mary Gauthier album; the latter more a slice of electric blues and both voicing relationship issues and longing. Coney Island is a tribute to her impressions of just being young and free, while the final song It Already Hurts When You Leave is an appropriate way to finish the set with a yearning for more and an acceptance that everything comes to a conclusion. As live albums go, this certainly ticks all the boxes in the dynamic, but it also delivers a consistently high quality in the performance, the personality, and the recording. If you wanted an introduction to the music of this terrific musician, then this is a perfect place to start that journey.

Paul McGee

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Hardcore Country, Folk, Bluegrass, Roots & Americana since 2001.