Tag Archives: folk-rock

The Waterboys’ A Rock In The Weary Land

No’am Newman wrote this review. Oh No’am, I know you’re disappointed with this disc; I know that you were expecting The Waterboys of Whole Of The Moon and Fisherman’s Blues and instead you got something else. But it’s not my … Continue reading

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Gåte’s Iselilja

In 2003 I wrote that Gåte had taken folk rock into the 21st century with their first full length CD Jygri. After having sold more than 40,000 copies of that album and been awarded a platinum record in Norway for … Continue reading

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Teddy Thompson’s Separate Ways

No sophomore slump for Teddy Thompson. On the contrary, his second outing Separate Ways is altogether a more muscular and cohesive affair than his 2001 self-titled debut. He’s aided and abetted by dad Richard and mom Linda (on the hidden … Continue reading

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang’s Night of a Thousand Candles, Silvertown, and The Domino Club

Chuck Lipsig wrote this review. In some alternate branch of history, there is a very successful Irish punk-folk band that was founded and fronted by Shane MacGowan, called The Men They Couldn’t Hang. However, Shanne Hasler, fellow member of a … Continue reading

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Shane Parish’s Liverpool

What do you think of when you hear the term “sea shanties?” A bunch of guys singing rhythmic songs unaccompanied or with one concertina or fiddle? Or maybe even Rogue’s Gallery, the late great Hal Willner’s superb four disc collection … Continue reading

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M. Ward’s Post-War

M. Ward is on a roll. With Post-War, he has released his fifth full-length CD (third for Merge), and against all odds he keeps getting better. He’s still recognizably the same singer-songwriter he was on his first, Duets for Guitars … Continue reading

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M. Ward’s Transistor Radio

Ever since his first album Duets For Guitar, No. 2 was released by Howe Gelb’s Ow Om label around the turn of the century (where it remains one of the label’s best sellers), Matt Ward has produced albums with a … Continue reading

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Gordon Lightfoot’s Don Quixote

Gordon Lightfoot and I go back quite a ways. Though he cut his first album in 1966 and quickly became the top folk singer in Canada, his first hit in the U.S. was the single “If You Could Read My … Continue reading

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Daniel Norgren’s Daniel Norgren Live

Daniel Norgren’s Wooh Dang was one of my favorite albums of 2019, and his live show that I saw in Portland in October of that year was startling and uplifting – and also one of the last live shows I … Continue reading

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Andy Gill & Kevin Odegard’s A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the making of Blood on the Tracks

Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks is a landmark album. It is listed on numerous “best-of” album lists, be they of “all time” or the Seventies, or of the rock era. It and its follow-up, Desire, are his two top-selling … Continue reading

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