It’s week 2 of the search for our writers’ Top 10 UK americana albums, and Jonathan Hincks will doubt add to the debate with his choice, as follows:
With the hands of the Doomsday Clock edging inexorably closer to midnight—85 seconds and counting last time I checked—some AUK readers may well be stocking their nuclear bunkers and curating post-apocalyptic playlists whilst whistling Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Taking a lead from Donald Fagen, this writer’s provisions will certainly include lots of beer. After all, “The keyword is survival on the new frontier”. So, when AUK’s Features Editor, Fred Arnold, threw down his Top 10 UK Americana Albums of all Time gauntlet, it came as a timely reminder to upload some essentials onto my battery operated MP3 player. Come doomsday there will be plenty of listening time in my bunker before the dust settles and they say that prior planning prevents p*ss poor performance. Fingers crossed the sirens won’t be sounding until at least Fred has collated the efforts of all 28 staff writers. As one of this feature’s early contributors, overthinking the task has not been an issue. Of the many established and emerging UK artists mining the rich seams of American roots music, narrowing the field down to ten has nevertheless involved some sweat and a few tears. My personal picks from this broad church will hopefully stimulate debate; as long as no blood is shed and the fallout isn’t nuclear.
Number 10: Eric Clapton & Friends The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale (2014)
Slowhand met laid-back on the Clapton/Cale collaboration The Road to Escondido (2006), which won them the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2008. The pair’s Venn diagram’s intersection is clearly manifest on The Breeze (An Appreciation of JJ Cale), in which Clapton again channels the Tulsa sound as he takes a shuffle down a well-trodden red dirt road. This album was recorded the year after the death of his long-term friend and muse. Clapton and Friends’ tribute sees a stellar cast of musicians deliver 16 tracks, 13 of which were written by Cale. There is no trace of Cocaine, which Clapton had previously covered on Slowhand (1977). In August 2014 Clapton spoke at length with music journalist Dan Forte about his relationship with Cale and the recording of this tribute album (here).
My featured track is Clapton’s rendition of Call Me The Breeze, which was the opening song of Cale’s 1971 debut album Naturally: the Official Music Video is a poignant reminder of the camaraderie and chemistry of their special relationship.
Number 9: Michael Chapman Americana 1&2 (2019)
My first dose of Chapman was Rainmaker, his 1969 debut studio album. It arrived by post in a cardboard box packaged by Porthmadog’s mighty vinyl emporium, Cob Records—still trading today and described as a “Tardis of musical rarities” by The Financial Times. I saw Chapman perform twice, in Regents Park in the mid 70s and 40 years later in Bristol, and was mesmerised on both occasions. Hats off to Hunslet, Chapman’s hometown, the unlikely origin of a fingerpicking expertise that helped to inspire future generations of guitarists. These include James Elkington and Steve Gunn who both played on his Bachelors of Paradise release 50 (2017), a late career highlight celebrating five decades of touring and recording. Sadly Chapman, resting in peace since 2021, is no longer a Fully Qualified Survivor.
Americana 1&2, on the Mooncrest label, is a “2CD, 6 panel Digipack featuring Michael’s instrumental take on his journeys across America. The 2000 album “Americana” reflects the soft, swampy atmosphere of the deep South and “Americana 2” from 2002, the hard-edged light of the South West”. We will never know whether Chapman spotted Cypress Cindy, the serpentine legend of Caddo Lakes, or if he located Charles Mingus in Looking For Charlie In Nogales, but he did find peace in Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly in the track White House.
My featured cut is the pastoral Ponchatoula. Having worked for many years in Cheddar, I’m no stranger to Strawberry Capitals of the World, a title to which the Louisiana city of Ponchatoula has claims, along with Watsonville, CA., Plant City, FL., Chadbourn, NC., and Stilwell, OK. Ponchatoula is also known for a famous journalist—the former local newspaper columnist “Ole Hardhide”, who died in 1990, had a strawberry shaped birthmark, weighed 900kg and was eleven feet long. This famous alligator even had his own bank account, but I’m not aware that he ever used it to snap up a copy of Chapman’s album from Cob Records. More fool him.
Number 8: Ben Glover Shorebound (2018)
Ben Glover’s discography stretches from The Week The Clocks Changed (2008, Ben Glover & The Earls) to And the Sun Breaks Through the Sky (2024). He is also a bandmember of The Orphan Brigade whose haunting 2015 album Soundtrack To A Ghost Story was written and recorded in the spooky setting of The Octagon Hall in Franklin, Kentucky. I’ve seen Glover perform a couple of times, with Angel Snow in Bath and Gretchen Peters in Bristol. Glover and Peters cowrote Blackbirds, which featured on the former’s Atlantic album (2014) and was the title track of the latter’s 2015 studio album. Blackbirds was the Americana Music Association’s 2017 International Song of the Year.
Collaboration is key on Glover’s album Shorebound which, for me, is the cream of his very bountiful crop. Both Peters and Snow feature as members of his star-spangled cast of creative partners. Ten of the twelve tracks were cowritten: the roll call also also includes Amy Speace, Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey and Robert Vincent. Even Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross gets in on the act with the collection’s catchiest number, Wildfire. Born in Glenarm on the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland, Glover relocated to Nashville in 2009. He is also a mindfulness meditation teacher and certainly practices what he preaches on Shorebound, particularly in the solo track Kindness, “May you be without anger/ May you be without hate/ May you be without jealousy/ May you be without shame/ And if the world gets lost in sadness/ May you find a prayer of hope”. Shorebound picked up the Americana Music Association UK’s 2019 Album of the Year award and was given a 9/10 rating by Dave Jennings in his AUK album review.
Having seen the pair share a stage, my nod goes to the Glover/Snow cowrite A Wound That Seeks The Arrow.
Number 7: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand (2007)
From Robert Plant’s humble beginnings in the mid 60s as washboard player with The Delta Blues Band to receiving an Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award six decades later, it has been quite the journey for the West Midlands musical shapeshifter. As Americana Music Association Executive Director Jed Hilly said of him, “His willingness to immerse himself in the traditions of blues, folk, country and gospel, while continuing to push their boundaries, has expanded the audience for Americana around the world. Few artists have done more to honour the music’s past while helping shape its future.” In the early 70s, my mother banned me from listening to the Led Zeppelin II album on account of its adaptation of Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor. Unsurprisingly the lyric “Squeeze me, baby, until the juice runs down my leg” was deemed one squeeze of the lemon too many.
Duets have been a prominent part of Plant’s 21st Century modus operandi. Suzi Dian has been his most recent vocal partner (Saving Grace and its forthcoming companion All That Glitters… EP) and before that he hit the sweet spot with Alison Krauss. The first of his two recordings with Krauss, the T-Bone Burnett produced Raising Sand (2007), covered an impressive and eclectic array of material from The Everly Brothers to Townes Vann Zandt. It was awarded Album of the Year by both the Americana Music Association (2008) and at the Grammy Awards (2009)—February 8th, 2009, was a remarkable five Grammy day for Plant and Krauss (Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, Record Of The Year and Album Of The Year). And between the two Krauss collaborations, he made a similarly americana-focussed album with Patty Griffin who shared the headline in his Band of Joy
I’ve gone for Gone Gone Gone as my chosen one, which was the title track of a 1964 Everly Brothers album.
Number 6: Martin Simpson Purpose + Grace (2011)
The government stepped in last year to keep Scunthorpe’s British Steel blast furnaces in action. No such intervention was required for another of Scunny’s legends, Martin Simpson, still burning as brightly as ever after half a century in production. His latest album, Some Kind of Jubilee, has just landed—he recently told Guitarist magazine about its journey from the North Yorkshire Moors to Jackson Brown’s Groove Masters Studio in Santa Monica (here).
It took many hours of self-debate to settle on which of Lincolnshire’s most famous fingerpicker’s recordings to select for this feature. I finally settled on Purpose + Grace whose title originates from a Yip Harburg quote; “I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with purpose and grace which are well worth singing about.” Simpson includes a cover of that American lyricist’s Great Depression anthem Brother Can You Spare A Dime, on the album. Other highlights include The Lakes of Ponchartrain, a much covered traditional song probably of American Civil War origin, Banjo Bill—a tribute to the Kentucky banjo picker and politician Banjo Bill Cornett, and Bruce Springsteen’s “Brothers Under the Bridge”. But for me, the showstopper is In The Pines. This traditional song, which probably dates from the 1870s, has been recorded by numerous artists, including Bill Monroe, Lead Belly and Nirvana. According to Simpson’s liner notes, “The first recording of the song was made in 1927 by the old timey guitar and fiddle duo Henry Whitter and GB Grayson, and it has bounced across racial barriers as songs so successfully do, before and since then.” I was unable to detect the exact point at which tuning up transitioned into performance when I saw him open his set with the song at the 2014 Shrewsbury Folk Festival. It still gives me the shivers every time I hear it.
Number 5: Richard Thompson Music From Grizzly Man (2005)
Thompson’s musical presence has been with me since Fairport Convention’s Unhalfbricking days—Who Knows Where the Time Goes? The Buddy Miller produced Electric (2013) is perhaps the Thompson recording most likely to bear a “warning: may contain Americana” advisory sticker, but hang on to your teddy bears, I’ve gone for Music From Grizzly Man. In December 2004, an ensemble of musicians who had not previously played together assembled to collectively improvise the score for a film they had yet to see. Thompson was joined by Danielle De Gruttola (cello), Damon Smith (acoustic bass), Jim O’Rourke (piano/guitar), John Hanes (drums/percussion) and session producer Henry Kaiser to compose and perform the soundtrack for Werner Herzog’s documentary about the life and death of the American filmmaker and naturalist Timothy Treadwell. Herzog’s documentary incorporates footage shot by Treadwell over the course of thirteen summers that he spent living with wild bears in the Katmai National Park and Preserve. Located at the mainland end of the Alaska Peninsula, the park is home to over two thousand brown bears. The film is a must watch; if you’re lucky your DVD will include a bonus special feature—In the Edges: The Grizzly Man Session, “a 50 minute documentary on the making of the film’s music”. If it doesn’t, don’t panic (here). The film’s score is bold, raw, spacious and transcendent.
Number 4: Our Man In The Field Gold on the Horizon (2023)
As well as being famous for having Britain’s oldest water balanced funicular, Saltburn-by-the-Sea is the hometown of Our Man In The Field’s frontman Alex Ellis. The band’s debut album, The Company Of Strangers (2020), secured it a support slot on The Delines 2022 tour. A nod from Willy Vlautin is as good as a wink to this blind horse, so the chance to see both The Delines and Our Man In The Field play at this year’s 7 Hills Festival in Trowbridge was too good to miss. An accomplished and compelling set from Ellis and his band whetted my appetite for both the Americana 25 festival—which has OMITF on its roster—and the upcoming third studio album, Silverado.
The sophomore album Gold on the Horizon transported Ellis and his crew from the North Sea northeast to the Pacific Northwest to record at Tucker Martine’s Flora Recording and Playback Studio in Portland, Oregon. The resulting uplifting collection of Cleveland country soul is made for the open road with the sunroof down. The combination of the charismatic Ellis’s vocals and the synergistic support of his band and guest musicians delivers a warm and welcoming soundscape. Graeme Tait’s AUK review headline read “Highly anticipated sophomore album delivers on all the promise of their debut”. The song L’Étranger may have been inspired by the Albert Camus novella, but any strangers in an OMITF audience are more likely to be friends you’ve yet to meet.
My featured track is not a cover of Ace’s 1975 hit single.
Number 3: Peter Bruntnell Houdini and the Sucker Punch (2024)
Bruntnell wound up the 20th century with a Mojo Americana Album Of The Month, Normal For Bridgwater, which as a former Somerset GP is something I’ve never written on a medical record. I’ve long since hung up my stethoscope, but Bruntnell is still going strong and producing great music. He was the only UK artist to feature in both the AUK writers’ and readers’ Greatest Ever Americana Artists lists compiled by Clint West back in February 2024. Not one to rest on his laurels, Bruntnell released Houdini and the Sucker Punch a few months later, which landed him the Americana UK Readers’ poll 2024 Album Of The Year garland. His regular band of Mick Clews, Dave Little and Peter Noone (not of Herman’s Hermits) is supported by the likes of alt-country cavalry Jay Farrar and Mark Spencer (Son Volt), with finishing touches applied by Eric Heywood’s pedal steel. The album’s free flowing melodies and hook laden lyrics, combined with optimum doses of jangle and pedal, allow the warmth and wisdom of Bruntnell’s songwriting to shine through as brightly as his bouzouki. Having seen him supporting The Delines a couple of years ago, I look forward to a further helping of Bruntnell at the AUK 25 Festival.
My featured song is the album’s title track. Harry Houdini died of peritonits/septicaemia a few days after being punched in the abdomen backstage by an overzealous student keen to test the great escapologist’s ability to withstand blows to his belly. A fact-checking website, Snopes, opined that the trauma was an associative rather than a causative factor in his demise. Sometimes a good song just hits you in the guts.
Number 2: Billy Bragg and Joe Henry Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad (2016)
Wellington boots were required for my first Billy Bragg gig, the memorably muddy affair that was the 1985 Glastonbury CND Festival. I remember his Pyramid stage performance being interrupted when a clod of Pilton sludge thrown from the crowd landed on his fretboard, forming an ineffective capo. Even so, the milkman of human kindness managed to deliver his message along with an extra pint or two. The following decade, Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, approached Bragg and entrusted him with an American roots music crown jewel—her father’s collection of unrecorded songs. Bragg joined forces with Wilco and recorded 50 of them; Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998 and Mermaid Avenue (Volume 2) in 2000. Both volumes, plus a CD’s worth of outtakes, were assembled and released as the Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions (1997/8) box set in 2012, just in time for what would have been Woody’s 100th birthday. I suspect many AUK writers will select one or other of these for this feature. However, being a sucker for a journey with its own soundtrack, I’m going with Bragg’s 2016 collaboration with Joe Henry, Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad. It was all aboard the Texas Eagle at Chicago’s Union Station for Bragg and Henry for their 65 hour, 2,728 mile, train ride to Los Angeles, punctuated by platform and waiting room performances en route. Raiding the great railroad songbook, the pair covered songs by the likes of Jean Ritchie, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and Sara Carter, as well as a number of traditional songs. What better way to celebrate journey’s end at the western terminus of Los Angeles Union Station than with Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain; there may not have been any precipitation, but it was certainly early morning. I had a ticket to ride when the album tour called at Bristol’s St. George’s in January 2017 and witnessed a rousing version of Rock Island Line. My featured track shares its title with the first chapter of Billy Bragg’s 2017 book “Roots, Radicals & Rockers (How skiffle changed the world)”—written “for every kid who picked up a guitar after hearing Lonnie Donegan”.
Number 1: Dean Owens Sinner’s Shrine (2022)
Owens’ eighth studio album, Sinner’s Shrine, was his first to register on my radar. There was a lot of catching up to be done. Fortunately, a crash course was available in the form of The Man From Leith (The Best of Dean Owens) compilation,which spans his first seven official solo albums, from The Droma Tapes (2001) toSouthern Wind(2018). Shame on me: Elvis Was My Brother, The Night Johnny Cash Played San Quentin and the UK Americana Music Association 2019 UK Song of The Year award winning Southern Wind, to mention but a few. With my AUK 25 Festival ticket already in the bag, Owens’ set is one I’ll be sure not to miss.
Sinner’s Shrine was a revelation; recorded at the WaveLab Studio in Tucson, Arizona in collaboration with Calexico, Owens added a tartan twist to the Tucson sound. A Sonoran soundscape with a sprinkling of horns and even some whistling: call it Caledonia desert-noir, if that’s not too oxymoronic a descriptor. Amongst the highlights are the album’s opener, Arizona, the US/Mexico border ballad The Barbed Wire’s Still Weeping and the Townes van Zandt inspired Hopeless Ghosts, with guest vocals from Grant-Lee Phillips. Compañera was partly inspired by a visit to Tucson’s El Tiradito Wishing Shrine—said to be the only Catholic shrine in the U.S. dedicated to a sinner, while the Latin leaning vibe of La Lomita delivered a message of resistance from a Texas chapel against the planned border wall.
It’s a hell of a trek from Midlothian to Pima County, a journey that I’m unlikely to be taking any time soon. For now, the breathtaking immersive Sinner’s Shrine will do nicely, as it did for AUK readers, who voted it 2023’s Best UK Americana Album. My selected track, initially recorded for The Droma Tapes but transported to the American southwest for a panoramic makeover, is New Mexico—unless a certain world leader, with an insatiable appetite for rebranding, issues an Executive Order changing it to “New America”. Such a directive would be unlikely to meet with the approval of either Dean Owens or residents of the Land of Enchantment.
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