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Sam Lee & Friends - Lord Gregory - The Fade In Time - Nest Collective  www.thenestcollective.co.uk/1994/08/sam-lee
Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn - Pretty Polly - Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn - Rounder Records    www.belafleck.com/
Bella Hardy - Good Man's Wife - Battle Plan - Noe Records  www.bellahardy.com

Tim O'Connor & The Ant Farm Collective - Flow - Returning To The Sea - Uilleand Music www.facebook.com/timoconnor.hull
Colin Hay - Next Year People - Next Year People - Compass Records www.colinhay.com
Kate Campbell - Montgomery To Mobile - 1000 Pound Machine - Large River Music   www.katecampbell.com

Sam Lee & Friends - The Bonny Bunch Of Roses - The Fade In Time - Nest Collective  www.thenestcollective.co.uk/1994/08/sam-lee
Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn - Ride To You - Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn  - Rounder Records   www.belafleck.com
Bella Hardy - Sleeping Beauty - Battle Plan - Noe Records  www.bellahardy.com

Tim O'Connor & The Ant Farm Collective - Original Mystery - Returning To The Sea - Uilleand Music  www.facebook.com/timoconnor.hull
Colin Hay - Waiting In The Rain - Next Year People - Compass Records www.colinhay.com
Kate Campbell - Alabama Department Of Corrections Meditation Blues  - 1000 Pound Machine - Large River Music   www.katecampbell.com

Sam Lee - "London Folk artist Sam Lee returns with ‘The Fade In Time’, a follow up to 2012’s Ground Of Its Own – which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Sam takes a 21st Century view on Folk traditions from the UK and around the world – re-imagining the British folk tradition through the eyes of the wider world. The music takes a path from Gypsy Traveller songs, through Japanese court music to wedding marches from Tajikistan – a truly global journey, with English folk song at its heart. Sam’s 5 piece band recorded the album with Arthur Jeffes (of Penguin Cafe Orchestra) and Jamie Orchard-Lisle." - Proper Music Distribution website

Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn - "This is not Dueling Banjos: The Married Couple Edition. You won't find the careening energy of the mano-a-mano from the Deliverance soundtrack, or of the Flatt and Scruggs classic "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." Outbreaks of dazzling, speed-demon technique are few. Instead, the first duo recording from Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn — husband-and-wife banjo adventurers with divergent areas of specialty — is notable for its understated, welcoming calm. Across 11 short, carefully arranged slivers of Americana, Fleck and Washburn explore roots music using the tones and coloration options that arise when two banjos join in conversation. Sometimes the focus is on basic timekeeping, via the intricate arpeggios and latticework rhythm patterns associated with scores of banjo classics. Sometimes the two seek out moodier realms, among them the unique, entrancing drones common in rural blues." - www.NPR.org

Bella Hardy - "Leaving aside her recent acclaimed ‘side projects’ on the folkloric balladry of her beloved Peak District and the yuletide compendium Bright Morning Star, Bella’s fourth release displays an artist confident with her Muse widening the range of soundscapes used to present her carefully crafted song material. Resident mainly in Edinburgh now, her band selection of excellent Scottish accompanists, The Midnight Watch, are Anna Massie (guitar/banjo), Angus Lyon (keyboards/accordion), James Lindsay (bass) and producer Mattie Foulds (drums). Their collective arrangements cleverly befit and chart the dynamic and moods of the several song pieces. The combination of new songs with adaptations of traditional material reflects Bella’s academic approach to the songbook sources. She often abstracts from several variant versions and story strands to produce her own more modern, often complex, amalgam. Usually some part of her life experience and empathetic sense of the perspective of the female protagonists is sewn into this new contemporary take on both the lyrics and tunes. This is a highly successful method refreshingly re-presenting, say, classic gypsy ballads (Good Man’s Wife), the downfall of the ‘unfortunate’ syphilitic lass (True Hearted Girl), the serial murderer ‘outlandish’ knight’s comeuppance being bedded alone in the ‘deep briny blue’ (The Seventh Girl) and the paling and fading decay resulting from ‘flash company’ (Yellow Handkerchief). Dramatisation is provided by sophisticated musical scenery that, although recognisably and primarily folk, touches on rock (Three Pieces Of My Heart rather sounds like Judie Tzuke’s recent output) with some jazz, French café, etc. Always, however, centre-stage, clearly sitting atop the instrumentation, is that pure voice, passionately conveying the spectrum of emotions and moods of songs where grief, loneliness and darkness are customarily prevalent. With her usual disarming honesty, Bella explains that her ‘battleplan’ lists somehow ‘never go to plan’. That surely matters little when the outcome is as winning and winsome as this latest excellent piece of work." - Kevin T. Ward Living Tradition magazine

Tim O'Connor & The Ant Farm Collective - Hull UK- based cooperative bringing the well crafted and tuneful compositions of singer/songwriter Tim O'Connor to life, comprising Tim O'Connor - Voice, Guitars & Keys, Pete McLeod - Percussion, Simon Strauli - Bass Guitar & Acoustic Guitar, Trish Silvester - Voice, Dicky Deagan - Uilleann Pipes, Whistle.

Colin Hay - singularly and mellifluously voiced Australian singer-songwriter who catapulted to worldwide fame as the voice and composer behind Men At Work...

"12th studio album and his first album after almost four years. The album features 12 songs that are an eclectic mix of both humorous and open-hearted tones. Colin is backed by San Miguel Perez and Yosmel Montejo, both recent Cuban transplants, in addition to Larry Goldings on piano, Jeff Babko on B3, and Colin’s wife, Cecilia Noel, as a vocalist." Artist's website

Kate Campbell - the splendid musical documenter of the lives and times down here in the sunny South... making a most welcomed return visit to Little Rock Folk Club on Sat Feb 28th 2015  

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