Every so often, the release of an artist’s debut album reveals a feel-good story in the music industry. And this is a one of the best!   It tells how Sean Walshe, a 61-year-old singer-songwriter, managed to get his first release produced by Rob Fraboni, a legend in the recording industry who has, quite literally, mixed with the greatest names in music – the likes of Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton to name a few. Indeed, Richards has labelled him “a genius” and “one of the best sound engineers you can ever meet.”   Fraboni, now 72, produced, mixed and mast ..read more

Jerry Garcia’s magnetic influence on bluegrass music – and indeed his early obsession with the genre – has finally been formally recognised with the opening of a new exhibit dedicated to Garcia at the Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.   Titled Jerry Garcia: A Bluegrass Journey, the exhibition – in a 1,000 square foot gallery - was officially unveiled with a special three-day celebration around Easter weekend on March 28-30 with music featuring special guests together with film screenings and panel discussions   Perhaps the most significant enunciati ..read more

Few could imagine that in post-war London, there was a teenage boy dreaming of being a musical guitar-in-hand vagabond playing chords and blues melodies perfected by blind African American musicians.   But this is what Ralph May was doing in a Croydon housing estate in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. He would indeed change his name to Ralph McTell – after country-blues great Blind Willie McTell - and go on to become a singer-songwriting folk legend himself. The fact that he would compose one of the most covered songs in popular music, “The Streets of London,” had much to do with him find ..read more

  How does an artist cram 60 years of singing and song-writing - among some of the greats in the music business - into two and a half hours?   That is the challenge folk-rock legend Graham Nash has set for himself in 2024 as he embarks on his first solo headline tour of Australia and New Zealand under the banner: Graham Nash: Sixty Years of Songs and Stories. More is to come in the U.S. in August where he has 17 shows scheduled in August alone, from Colorado to Massachusetts.   It all kicked off in New Zealand, with concerts in Auckland and Christchurch. Nine gigs follow across ..read more

  It is now more than thirty years since three of the finest musicians to ever strap an acoustic instrument over their shoulders decided to engage in after-hours jamming sessions in a private Californian studio. What transpired over two nights would turn into musical gold!   In February 1993, ground-breaking mandolinist David "Dawg" Grisman and hotshot guitarist Tony Rice were in Grisman’s Mill Valley studio recording tracks for Tone Poems, a unique instrumental album which saw the pair duet using purely vintage instruments. To break their routine, Grisman invited his long-time frie ..read more

  Bonnie’s Raitt’s surprise – and deserved - triumph at the 65th Grammy Awards was the clear highlight of Americana Music in 2023. It was also, for some, the obvious lowlight.   Raitt collected the prestigious Song of the Year Grammy for “Just Like That,” a remarkable composition that, for many in the music industry, wonderfully reflected the seemingly-lost art of crafted song-writing which reflects the trials and tribulations of ordinary life!   But for others, especially the mainstream music media, it was plain treachery. “WTF: Bonnie Raitt Wins Song of the Year” screame ..read more

And the award for the most inventive covers album of the year – maybe all-time - goes to … Chan Marshall for her November 10 release Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. Such an adulation may be entirely fictitious! But American blues-influenced singer-songwriter Chan Marshall - a.k.a. Cat Power - deserves true recognition for her wonderful song-by-song rendition of Dylan’s historic May 1966 performance at the Manchester Trade Hall, later released as part of Dylan’s Bootleg Series under the erroneous title “Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Marshall’s vision to re-enact one of ..read more

It may have taken almost 50 years, but Emmylou Harris has finally re-recorded a song she first did with Bob Dylan on Desire - one of his most debated and certainly most popular albums. And the circumstances of her latest release are as fascinating as the events surrounding the actual recording of the 1976 classic. In the final months before his death on September 1 this year, legendary singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett was busy compiling a new album, featuring both original and covers, and was particularly keen on putting his unique Calypso spin on “Mozambique,” probably the most jaunty and bub ..read more

It is a half century since a bunch of good ole boys joined an original Deadhead and his offsider to deliver what many believe is the greatest live acoustic music ever recorded. The band – one of the first to be defined as a supergroup – called themselves Old & In the Way and they were turn bluegrass music on its head. Old & In the Way was formed in 1973 when three bluegrass virtuosos, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements and David Grisman decided to team up with a cult name in popular music, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and John Kahn, Jerry’s bass-playing sidekick outside the Dead. Thei ..read more

It is 50 years since the death of Gram Parsons, an event so bizarre it would forever overshadow his achievements as not only one of the pioneers of country rock but also as someone who would introduce the music world to the legendary Emmylou Harris. Parsons died at the age 26 on September 19, 1973, as a result of a drugs overdose in a motel near the picturesque Joshua Tree National Park, south-eastern California. He had become a big name associated with the emergence of country rock and his death would have been seen as just another sad sex-drugs-and-rock’n roll cliché of the 1970’s had it no ..read more