a music blog
To stray is to go off the beaten path, wandering without a home, scratching survival on your own terms.
No surprise then that Margo Price would name her new album ‘Strays’, since she has embraced that identity since the beginning of her career. In her recent memoir Maybe We’ll Make It she underlined how hard she’d worked to remain a stray – to never compromise the vision she had for her music.
Continue reading “Album Review: Margo Price – Strays”
Last year Emily Scott Robinson, Alisa Amador and duo Violet Bell released an E.P. called ‘Built on Bones’ written for a production of Macbeth. In the songs they sang from the perspective of Shakespeare’s three witches and Lady Macbeth herself, in an attempt to reclaim and reframe the narrative of these women’s stories.
Taking to the Celtic Connections stage was a natural fit then for these artists – where better to sing the songs inspired by the Scottish play? The hallowed surrounding of the Mackintosh Church, only added to the beauty of the evening’s entertainment.
Continue reading “Live Review – Emily Scott Robinson with Violet Bell and Alisa Amador @ Celtic Connections 28/01/23”
‘I can still sing,’ Lucinda Williams said on stage during her show on Monday night, a defiant reminder that despite a stroke she still has her voice. As a singer and lyricist she’s always turned the broken and fragile parts of her life into songs, and they felt even more vital and powerful after all she’s been through to get back on tour again.
Continue reading “Live Review: Lucinda Williams @ Celtic Connections 23/01/2023”
On a freezing January evening there is nothing more restoring to the soul and the spirit than a night of brilliant music, courtesy of the wonderful Celtic Connections festival. Returning to Glasgow after many covid postponements Sierra Hull and Rachel Baiman brought the best of Nashville musicianship to Scottish shores and were greeted warmly by a sold-out and appreciative crowd of folk music lovers.
Continue reading “Live Review: Sierra Hull & Rachel Baiman @ Celtic Connections”
The holidays are fast approaching and I’m trying my best to get festive so I thought I’d round up some of the Christmas releases from this year and beyond in my weekly playlist. Read on to find out more about my three favourite new/old ones for this year.
Continue reading “Three Christmas Songs for 2022”
Original Christmas songs and albums are becoming harder to find, with so many artists finding the opportunity to sing classics too hard to resist. Who can blame them, after all, since these holiday songs are etched on our collective memories. Last year Pistol Annies released an album of mainly originals but that is rare.
Norah Jones’s ‘I Dream of Christmas’ was actually released last year, although I didn’t have a chance to listen to it then, so I was glad to see this deluxe re-release came just in time when I was looking for a new Christmas album to review. The edition includes six original songs written by Norah, alongside seasonal favourites sung in her classic jazz inspired sound.
Continue reading “Album Review: Norah Jones – I Dream of Christmas”
Miko Marks’s last release ‘Our Country’ was a welcome return for an artist who had suffered setbacks in her country music career, never finding the opportunities or success her talent deserved. That album was a classic mix of country, soul and gospel influences showcasing an artist who had renewed hope for a late career resurrection.
Continue reading “Album Review: Miko Marks & the Resurrectors – Feel Like Going Home”
In her first album of new music since the career defining exploration of her musical heritage that was Musas Vol 1 & 2 and her passion project Un Canto Por Mexico Vol 1 & Volume 2, Natalia Lafourcade cements her status as one of the most vital voices in Latin roots music.
Continue reading “Album Review: Natalia Lafourcade – De Todas Las Flores”
Margo Price’s debut album ‘Mid-West Farmer’s Daughter’ told the story of a harrowing, hard-fought struggle to make it in the music industry, exploring grief, marriage, poverty, addiction, prison and the desperation of depression.
That story is recounted in her stunning new memoir ‘Maybe We’ll Make It’, an unflinching and unapologetic manifesto of personal and artistic freedom.
Continue reading “Book Review: ‘Maybe We’ll Make It’ by Margo Price”
Highway Queens 