It was the voice of Arkansas songwriter Jonivan Jones that struck us when we first heard this new song, ‘After The Sunset’, with its acoustic blues/country sound that reminded us of fellow gravelly troubadour Ryan Bingham. Tough yet heartfelt, the song is written from the perspective of a veteran who has recently departed the service … Continue reading
Lucinda Williams Good Souls Better Angels Highway 20 / Cooking Vinyl Australia After a year spent looking back with her Car Wheels On A Gravel Road 20th anniversary tour, Lucinda Williams has now turned her mind to the modern world in the here and now, from internal battles of individuals to the heartless idiocy of … Continue reading
ALIVE AND KICKING On his debut solo album, What A Way To Die, Brandon Dodd shows he’s more than ready to step out of the shadows of his other musical projects with an accomplished and wide-ranging collection of roots music songs. If you’ve ever seen Kasey Chambers live in concert over the last five years … Continue reading
Brandon Dodd What A Way To Die Independent ‘Absolute’, the opening track on Brandon Dodd’s debut solo album sets a high standard with its warmth and intimacy, a wonderful blend of country, folk and heart-on-sleeve soul. The subtlety and restraint in the guitar playing and Dodd’s voice introduce a solo artist who has treaded the … Continue reading
Charley Crockett, today announced his latest studio album Welcome To Hard Times, released July 31st on Thirty Tigers. A bold new record from the definitive young voice in country and western’s modern reinvention. Produced by Mark Neill, with songwriting contributions from Pat McLaughlin and Dan Auerbach, Welcome To Hard Times’ is a genre-bending mix … Continue reading
Tami Neilson Chickaboom! Outside Music/Neilson Records On her latest album, Canadian-Kiwi Tami Neilson strips things right back to the core essence of song, rhythm and particularly a spotlight on her exceptional voice. Her focus was to record the songs as they would sound on stage, as performed by a three-piece band – her current preference … Continue reading
Today we’re featuring two new songs from Grey River & The Smoky Mountain, a folk group from Athens, Greece. Both tracks showcase the sensitivity with which they approach their music. The soulful vocal and the sparse instrumentation. There’s a bluesy country quality to their sound too, with shades of a darker gothic delivery. Both songs … Continue reading
Uncle Sinner released his new album Trouble Of The World in March and one of the highlights from it is this piece of raw folk blues in ‘Creation Myth’. A gravelly voice, primitive stomping percussion and rolling metallic banjo string plucking are the foundations for the song that takes off into a heady, psychedelic banjo … Continue reading
Tiny Bill Cody (Canadian artist Tor Lukasik-Foss) gets down to the blues basics of a great groove and some fine guitar playing. Over the top he’s draped a tale of all things chicken from a cosmic perspective. It reminds us of what an acoustic desert rock song might sound like – from a band like Masters Of … Continue reading
This song from Tortilla Flats jumps out of the gates on the back of a Dr Feelgood scratch and urgency and it doesn’t let up. Countrified and wired, it’s a blues boogie of sorts? Who knows! What it does do is kick like a mule. Great stuff from the Swedish group, who we haven’t actually … Continue reading
A new name to us here at PTW but British-born Canadian Sass Jordan has apparently sold over a million albums across her 40 year career! Rebel Moon Blues (March 13th) is her first album where she’s focused solely on singing the blues and if her cover of John Adam Estes’ ‘Leaving Trunk’ is anything to go … Continue reading
North Mississippi Allstars Up And Rolling New West Records The new album from Luther and Cody Dickinson’s North Mississippi Allstars was inspired by photos on a forgotten roll of film from the ‘90s. It got the brothers and their fellow musicians back into the studio, along with guests Mavis Staples, Jason Isbell, Cedric Burnside and … Continue reading
Charley Crockett The Valley Thirty Tigers / Cooking Vinyl Australia Descendant of legendary frontiersman Davy, traveling troubadour and heart surgery survivor – Charley Crockett sure has a big back story. The most pleasing factor is of course his music, a lackadaisical country blues sound with a New Orleans soul swing to it, which he’s been slowly … Continue reading
Paul Cauthen Room 41 Lightning Rod Records Out of misery and heartache comes great art. That seems to be one of the great recurring themes of all the artistic mediums. On his new solo album, Paul Cauthen has clearly lived and by the sound of it, learned from a particularly low period in his life … Continue reading
For a decade now, Dan Brodie has been a master at skirting around the edges of a number of musical genres. He’s taken from rock, blues, alt-country and rockabilly, combining them all into his own decidedly Australian take on rock ’n’ roll. It’s the sound of cold beer and back porches in the summertime, sweaty … Continue reading
