A beautiful early 70s debut LP from a then 20 year old, Halifax-reared Catherine Howe – produced and arranged by US jazz pianist Bobby Scott in a mode that manages to feel lush and opulent while never belying Catherine's warmth, intimacy and maturity! The sound is warmly baroque, and Catherine's lovely vocals and evocative songwriting style is sheerly natural – recorded in a fairly stripped down setting and fleshed out with strings by the London Symphony Orchestra. The mix of intimacy and grandeur makes the record a bit of stylistic cousin to Nick Drake's Bryter Layter – we take our Drake seriously and we don't throw that comparison out lightly! Released by a doomed Reflection Records, which closed up shop the same year – the album was almost instantly relegated to obscurity, but has become the stuff of legend over the years – thanks to reissues, and interest in Howe's music from younger generations. Titles include "Up North", "On A Misty Morning", "Nothing More Than Strangers", "My Child", "The Innocence Of A Child", "It Comes With The Breezes" and more – plus the bonus demo "In The Hot Summer" – which led to the next phase of Catherine's career at RCA. CD

One of the coolest entries in the Starday Records series of truck-themed collections in the 60s – partly because this one features material by just a small core of artists, and also because there's a fair bit of bluegrass in the mix as well! The tunes still have the truck-heavy tones of the other work of the time – but the vibe here is much more bluegrass than country (although we love country truck records too!) – and showcases some of the excellent artists who were being recorded by Starday at the time, with a very lean, respectful sound that holds up wonderfully over the years! Titles include "Truck Driver's Queen", "Hot Rod Kids & Women Drivers", "Truck Driver's Woman", and "Long White Line" by Moore & Napier; "Little Mountain Road", "Crossroads", and "Brand New Road" by Reno & Smiley; and "Gear Jammer" and "Truck Drivin Daddy" by Jimmy Logsdon. CD

Country music Christmas in all its glory – served up here in a whole host of tracks that mix bigger names with lesser-knowns, familiar songs with some unusual numbers that really keep things interesting! The themes here have a lot more to do with just daddy and drinking – and the package features a massive 30 tracks in all – with titles that include "Twisting Santa Claus" by Del Reeves, "Christmas At The Opry" by George Owens, "We Must Be Having One" by Tammy Wynette, "Gonna Wrap My Heart In Ribbons" by Hank Thompson, "Christmas Doll" by Reno & Smiley, "One Of You" by Marty Robbins, "Truckin Trees For Christmas" by Red Simpson, "Nuttin Fer Christmas" by Homer & Jethro, "It Won't Seem Like Christmas" by Loretta Lynn, "Merry Christmas Anyway" by Louise Johnson, "Mr & Mrs Santa Claus" by George Jones & Tammy Wynette, "Lonely Christmas Call" by Tamm Wynette, "Jingle Bells" by Johnny Paycheck, and "Christmas Greeting" by Liz Anderson, (Holiday Music, Folk/Country) CD

The second album from the legendary Nick Drake – one of those records we could never ever live without – and a true piece of genius that's been turning on generations of listeners since Nick first recorded it back at the start of the 70s! The format is folksy, but the execution is something else entirely – filled with jazzy phrasing, hypnotic lyrics, and arrangements that really go far beyond any cliches or contemporary work you might expect. The great Joe Boyd produced – and really helps give a strong focus to Nick's vocals and guitar – and the cool mix of added instrumentation – which includes organ and celeste from John Cale, flute and alto from Ray Warleigh, piano from Chris McGregor, and guitar from Richard Thompson. Drake's work is impossible to describe adequately, but if you've ever heard him, you probably stopped dead in your tracks the minute you first caught his voice. We still do the same – and it's a pleasure to have this one in stock! Titles include "Fly", "At The Chime Of A City Clock", "Hazy Jane", "Poor Boy", and "One Of These Things First". (Rock, Folk/Country) CD

About as close as you'll get to a debut album from the great Dave Dudley – as the set takes his classic title track, mixes it with a few other indie singles – and adds in a few other truck-themed tunes from the Starday catalog for good measure! Dudley's got one of our favorite voices ever in country music – and his landmark "Six Days On The Road" set a whole new standard for road-based tunes – a winning track about a pill-popping, cop-dodging trucker heading home at the end of a long run! Dave sings some other great ones here – including "Last Day In The Mines", "Where Do I Go From Here", "It's Gotta Be That Way", "Cry Baby", and "Taxi Cab Driver" – and the set also features the instrumentals "Lee Highway Swing" by Chubby Wise, and "Hot Rod Guitar" and "Big Rig Guitar" by Joe Maphis. CD

About as close as you'll get to a debut album from the great Dave Dudley – as the set takes his classic title track, mixes it with a few other indie singles – and adds in a few other truck-themed tunes from the Starday catalog for good measure! Dudley's got one of our favorite voices ever in country music – and his landmark "Six Days On The Road" set a whole new standard for road-based tunes – a winning track about a pill-popping, cop-dodging trucker heading home at the end of a long run! Dave sings some other great ones here – including "Last Day In The Mines", "Where Do I Go From Here", "It's Gotta Be That Way", "Cry Baby", and "Taxi Cab Driver" – and the set also features the instrumentals "Lee Highway Swing" by Chubby Wise, and "Hot Rod Guitar" and "Big Rig Guitar" by Joe Maphis. CD

A strong overview of tracks from their first years at RCA – a great mix of top-shelf musicianship, especially Jethro Burns on mandolin – and the duo's trademark knack for contemporary song parody! Titles include "Let Me Go Blubber", "Por Ol Koo-Liger", "I'm Movin On No 2", "Cold Cold Heart No 2", "Jam Bowl Liar", "Hart Brake Hotel", and "He'll Have To Go". LP, Vinyl record album

Sweet folksy pop from the glory days of A&M! Evie Sands has a voice that's emotive in a folk rock way, but which is here produced with smoother west coast arrangements that are more in an LA mode – which makes for a very cool mix of modes! The overall sound of the album is very hip – with that cool late 60s approach that never gets picked up by oldies stations, and which is only the province of records like this – odd mis-shots in the pop economy that often got cut out as soon as they were produced, shunned by an uncaring record buying public – but waiting to be discovered by your ears all these many years later. Titles include "Crazy Annie", "It's This I Am", "Shadow Of The Evening", "Close Your Eyes, Cross Your Fingers", "Any Way That You Want Me", "One Find Summer Morning", and "I'll Hold Out My Hand". Also includes the bonus track "Maybe Tomorrow". (Rock, Folk/Country) CD

Instrumental guitar great William Tyler's second album under his own name, and his first for indie powerhouse Merge Records – and it's an exceptionally beautiful piece of work from a player who's really just getting started! Tyler strikes a youthful presense, but he's actually been playing around a lot behind the scenes – as a studio and/or touring guitarist for Lambchop, Candi Staton, Charlie Louvin and others wise enough to record with producer Mark Nevers – who works on this record, too. Tyler is definitely inspired by finger style folk guitarists from the mid 20th Century onward, but he's also got a hypnotic style that feels like it's inspired by more atmospheric country rock and rustic 70s soundtracks. Here he's mixing it all it into a brilliant style all his own, and it's SO good. Guest musicians include fellow youthful Nashville string genius Chris Scruggs, drummer Scott Martin, steel player Luke Schneider and Roy Agee on trombone. Includes "Country Of Illusion", "The Geography Of Nowhere", "Cadillac Desert", "We Can't Go Home Again", "A Portrait Of Sarah", "Hotel Catatonia", "The Last Residents Of Westfall" and "The World Set Free". (Rock, Folk/Country) CD

A totally hip instrumental album from Peter Walker – a Vanguard Records treasure that we'd rank right up there with the label's classics from Sandy Bull! Like Bull, Walker has a way of taking older folk instrumentation into richly psychedelic territory – working here on both the Indian sarod, and on acoustic guitar – both played in these long, modal styles – and mixed with light instrumentation from Jim Pepper on flute, John Blair on violin, and Jim Hotep on tabla. The songs are very spare, and very freewheeling – still with a rhythmic core, but also floating free to find their own energy too – but at a level that's not nearly as hippy-dippy as we make that sound! Walker's got these amazing sonic sensibilities – just like Bull – and titles include "Second Song", "Tear", "Southwind", "Barefoot", "Mixture", "Socco Chico", and "Circus Day". CD

A really great document of a unique musical moment – one that happened overseas, but which started a wave of protest that's continued to this day! In the late 50s, London was a hotbed of nuclear protest – one of the first cities to express a strong resistance to the arms race that was building up at a global level – in a movement that not only drew political forces, but artists and musicians as well! This well-done set looks at some of the latter – a mix of folk and jazz singers and musicians who joined together to protest atomic weapons – some with songs that outwardly anti-nuclear, some a bit more subtle – brought together here in a massive 54 track collection! The range of material varies, and maybe the most surprising are some of the trad jazz artists who we might not have expected to be working next to more political folkies – in a lineup that features material from Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Fred & Betty Dallas, Margaret McKeown, Kenny Ball, Humphrey Lyttleton, Sheila Hancock, Sydney Carter, Chris Barber, George Melly, Kenny Ball, and The Alberts. CD

A great criss-crossing of modes at the end of the 60s – music that has roots in country, but which comes off with plenty of funk and soul as well – in styles that were burning strong from LA on eastward, all the way across the south at the time! Some of the grooves here might fall into the "swamp rock" mode of the time – while others showcase hip LA artists mixing rootsy elements with tighter studio production – and a few more have genre-crossing country artists trying on some more soulful modes for good measure. The range of work is really great – and quite surprising, too – and the whole thing's got a great look that really illuminates the music within. Titles include "Northeast Texas Women" by Willis Allan Ramsey, "Nobody" by Larry Williams & Johnny Watson, "Collection Box" by Thomas Jefferson Kaye, "Me & Mr Hohner" by Bobby Darin, "Hunger Child Blues" by Townes Van Zant, "California Women" by Hoyt Axton, "Pay Day Give Away" by Bill Wilson, "Shotgun Willie" by Willie Nelson, "Cajun Moon" by JJ Cale, "Sumpin Funky Going On" by Donnie Fritts, and "Don't Let Me Down" by Dillard & Clark. (Funky Compilations, Folk/Country) CD

Volumes 1-3 in Tompkins Square's masterful compilations of both rare vintage and the deepest modern acoustic guitar folk experimental instrumentals – in a single package that's a perfect intro to the series if you're like us and late to get in on it! The material is in the Takoma Records realm of adventurous, genre melding (or skirting) greatness – stunning stuff that blends older recordings by masters both iconic and obscure, newer recordings by pivotal figures, and modern work by younger artists that are just as awe inspiring, and the mix of old and new is seamless! Volume 1 includes "Imaginational Anthem" by Max Ochs, "Bouba's Bounce" by Brad Barr, "White Mule III" by Jack Rose, "Untitled" by Sandy Bull, "O Holy Night" by John Fahey and more. Volume 2 includes "River Of Heaven By James Blackshaw, "Future Shot At Life" by Peter Lang, "Leaving The Apple" by Michael Chapman and more. Volume 3 includes "Zocalo" by Richard Crandell, "Sleep Architecture" by Greg Davis, "Goblins" by George Stavis, "Texarkana 1971" by Shawn David McMillen and much more. CD

A great little set, even if it's not what you might expect – not the kind of cuts that heralded the early years of country soul – and instead an even cooler batch of tracks from those years when R&B and hillbilly records often crossed paths on the postwar scene! Many of the small indie labels of the 50s recorded both country and blues, sometimes even having different artists take on the same songs, but in different ways – which meant that there was often a lot of cross-pollination going on in the farther reaches of the music business! The cuts here definitely show that approach – as a good many of them were originally country hits for other singers, but sound great and very different in the hands of R&B artists – and are mixed with a few others that follow similar themes, and really fit into the set in a great way. As always with Bear Family, the whole thing is presented with great notes and details on the music – in a set list of 29 tracks that include "Steel Guitar Rag" by Earl Hooker, "Sixteen Tons" by BB King, "Lovesick Blues" by Sonny Knight, "Big Mamou" by Smiley Lewis, "Ghost Riders In The Sky" by Scatman Crothers, "It'd Surprise You" by The Griffin Brothers with Margie Day, "Indian Love Call" by Hal Singer, "No Help Wanted" by Bob Gaddy & His Alley cats, "Cherokee Boogie" by Moose Jackson, "It Makes No Difference Now" by Piano Red, and "You Can't Stay Here" by Pearl Reaves & The Concords. (Soul, Folk/Country) CD

The mighty Imperial Records was home to a fair bit of pop, blues, and R&B in the postwar years – but the label also had a slightly secret history as a hotbed for raw rock and hard-edged singles during the same stretch of time! Imperial was an indie, and one that kept an ear to the ground for new sounds far beyond its home in LA – a legacy that certainly comes through in the R&B they recorded, and the paths they forged in hillbilly music too – and which also really shows in this great mix of rare singles from back in the day! A few artists are are ones you'll know from other musical moments in their lives, and most of the rest are pretty darn obscure – yet, as always, Bear Family does a great job of telling their stories and sharing the music in the CD's very big booklet of notes, label scans, and other vintage images. 35 tracks in all – with tracks from Gloria Jean Pitts, Merle Kilgore, Bob Luman, Jackie Walker, Slick Slavin, Burnette Brothers, Tommy Lomonte, The Sidewinders, Nick Venet, Ronnie Smith, Dennis Herrold, Dub Dickerson, Jackie Walker, and others. (Rock, Folk/Country) CD