country
Reissue CDs Weekly: Factory Records, Dave Edmunds, Keith WhitleySunday, 24 February 2013
Crispy Ambulance: The Plateau Phase/The Durutti Column: LC/The Names: Swimming/The Wake: HarmonyPre-Madchester and before New Order’s breakout single “Blue Monday”, Manchester’s Factory Records was hard to penetrate. This quartet of reissues does a... Read more... |
Nashville, More4Friday, 08 February 2013
Usually that “similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental” note at the end of a broadcast is a mere formality - but I can’t have been the only person to react with a start when a trio of shady record company execs referred to... Read more... |
Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy, BBC FourSaturday, 19 January 2013
Although there was no shortage of interview clips with Glen Campbell [who has died at the age of 81] in this fine overview of his career, the tragedy was that archives were so heavily drawn on. Tragic because pop-country stylist Campbell has... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Gil Scott-Heron, K.T. Oslin, Motorpsycho, Feeling HighSunday, 23 December 2012
Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Begins – The Flying Dutchman MastersKieron TylerThis fine box set has a cuckoo in its nest which has to be dealt with instantly. Like Eric Clapton’s 1976 declaration of support for Enoch Powell, Scott-Heron’s “The... Read more... |
Kris Kristofferson, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 08 December 2012
From being disowned by his family to writing the ultimate hangover lament, Kris Kristofferson has, partly, led the life of a country song. The other part, however, has included a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, an illustrious movie career and dating... Read more... |
Charley Pride, IndigO2/ Lucinda Williams, Royal Festival HallMonday, 12 November 2012
Britain has a grudging relationship with country music – we’ve never produced a successful country singer (although the likes of guitarist Albert Lee and several songwriters have prospered in Nashville) and our love for the likes of Johnny Cash is... Read more... |
The Civil Wars, O2 Academy, GlasgowSaturday, 03 November 2012
There’s something admirable about the way that The Civil Wars have become quietly, unassumingly massive; packing mid-sized venues the length of the UK and chalking up over 100,000 copies of their debut album sold since its March release on these... Read more... |
Michael Nesmith, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 29 October 2012
Forty years ago Michael Nesmith was the tall, woolly-hatted Monkee people called “the talented one”. Faint praise maybe, but there was nothing mediocre about the country rock albums he went on to make. Nesmith had another advantage. His mother had... Read more... |
CD: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Ashes and RosesThursday, 28 June 2012
Twenty years ago Mary Chapin Carpenter used to sing about loving and losing, but also about lusting. Even her ballads went at a bullish lick. The essence of what she had to say was distilled in “He Thinks He'll Keep Her”, which captured the emotions... Read more... |
Norah Jones, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 02 June 2012
It's easy to forget exactly how successful Norah Jones is, but with over 50 million records sold, she is a modern success up there with the Jay-Zs of this world. To see her come on stage last night, though, you wouldn't have known it. There were no... Read more... |
Amanda Shires, Woodend Bowling and Tennis Club, GlasgowThursday, 19 April 2012
In a members-only bowling club, down a side street in a residential part of Glasgow I'd never visited before last night, Texan fiddle-player and songwriter Amanda Shires stood wearing the most magnificent pair of cowboy boots I had ever seen.They... Read more... |
Simone Felice, Electric Circus, EdinburghThursday, 12 April 2012
Nothing tests an artist’s mettle more severely than having to negotiate a full-blown case of tech-horror. Half way through the third number last night, a particularly sweet version of “Summer Morning Rain“, an ear-scorching sonic car crash brought... Read more... |
