Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for August 23rd, 2024. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Colin James
Chasing the Sun (Stony Plain Records)
It has taken way too long for veteran Canadian bluesman Colin James to receive recognition in America. This is a guy who, at just 24 years old, broke out of the blocks as one of Canada’s biggest blues stars. Thirty-six years and some 20 award-winning albums later he’s not just still going strong, but the terrific Chasing the Sun might be his finest offering yet. Perhaps it will provide much needed stateside visibility to one of contemporary blues/roots music’s most vibrant and consistently engaging players. Lucinda Williams, Rolling Stones bassist Daryl Jones, harmonica icon Charlie Musselwhite are aboard for these sessions. Longtime James producer and fellow countryman Colin Linden is a key component to the project’s success. He adds omnipresent second guitar besides helming the controls and coordinating the overall spacious musical feel from his Nashville home studio. It’s ominous and emotional, leaving the listener with a final bookend to a diverse testament for Colin James’ talents. All of which are captured in the stirring, blues-based Chasing the Sun. (edited from Rock & Blues Muse review)
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Woodland (Acony Records)
Traditional music is full of wild weather and woe. It’s discomfiting, but apt, that life should imitate art in the lives of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – two singing guitarists feted for their upholding of old musical forms. Recipients of three Grammys and numerous other gongs over a 30-plus-years career, the Nashville-based couple’s most often record collaboratively, but under separate names. Their latest album is a duo record named after their studio, Woodland, where, in March 2020, a tornado tore most of the roof off just as Covid hit. Roughly 100 songs by the pair, seemingly destined for two albums, were whittled down to these 10 exquisite tracks. Woodland is, as ever, steeped in Americana. The pair’s customary stripped-back treatments alternate with more lush orchestrations. Rawlings’s trademark guitar makes lace sparingly, but elegantly. (edited from The Guardian review)
Also new this week…
Colby Acuff – American Son (Sony Music Entertainment) +
Maggis Antone – Rhinestoned (Love Big Records)
Paula Boggs Band – Live at Sweetwater Music Hall (Boggs Media)
Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour – Friendlytown (Provogue Records)
Guy Davis – The Legend Of Sugarbelly (M.C. Records)
Ruthie Foster – Mileage (Sun Label Group)
Fruition – How To Make Mistakes (independent) +
Lydia Loveless – Something Else (Bloodshot Records)
India Ramey – Baptized By The Blaze (Mule Kick Records)
Wild Ponies – Dreamers (No Evil Records)
Coming out soon … Charlie Peacock, The Cactus Blossoms, Sunny Sweeney, The Boxmasters, Caleb Caudle, The Deslondes, Shemekia Copeland, Jerry Douglas, Hannah Juanita, Lisa Morales, JP Harris, Randall Bramblett, Amy Helm, Billy Strings, Donavon Frankenreiter, Nick Lowe and more!
