We’re sorry to end this week with some sad news for regular readers which some of you will know already via social media. It’s been a very tough last few days for us as a team here at Americana UK as we lost not one but two of our longstanding writers and editors – Firstly, Martin Johnson, AUK’s amazingly productive Interviews Editor since 2020 pictured on the left above who died on Thursday last week. And then we had the news yesterday of the loss of our beloved Live Reviews Editor Paul Kerr who is basically the longest-serving writer AUK has ever had, just the absolute heart of the website for as long as we’ve existed. You’re bound to say all the usual stuff when someone passes I know but over the years I came to understand that they were two of the most decent human-beings you’re ever likely to meet and between them wrote well in excess of 1,000 different pieces for the site.

We’ll be posting full tributes to both in days to come – please bear with us while we arrange our thoughts. On a personal basis I’ll miss them both hugely and with my editor’s hat on, AUK will without a doubt be a poorer place without them. I asked my colleague Paul Villers for a song which might fit this piece and he suggested something by Giant Sand, one of Paul’s favourite bands. Take care everyone and see you on Monday.

Kyp Harness makes music on his own terms and has been doing it for 35 years. He is prolific, having put out 20 independent albums of storytelling and melody, with his latest (Lovely) released in April 2026. His approach hasn’t changed that drastically since he released his debut album, Nowhere Fast, in 1991. Harness has had his compositions recorded by Steve Earle, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Ron Sexsmith and has been called a “great writer” by Daniel Lanois and noted as “the most vital, essential Canadian singer-songwriter out there” by the Calgary Straight.

But it’s not only his vast solo catalogue that defines Harness. His multimedia adventurousness makes his output all the more impressive. The winters are long and cold in Canada. He is, however, a man for all seasons. Originally from Sarnia, Ontario, Harness is the author of The Art of Laurel and Hardy and The Art of Charlie Chaplin, the latter hailed by Chaplin expert Dan Kamin as “among the best books ever written on the comedian.” He is also the creator of the daily Mortimer the Slug webcomic. His novel, Wigford Rememberies, won the Best Canadian Independent Novel Relit Award in 2017.

His is the type of music that envelops you with its warmth, and you might find yourself feeling lit up from the inside like one of those kitschy plastic snowmen in people’s front yards. The off-kilter playfulness is in combination with serious topics. But there is a kind of serendipity that lends his songs a homey touch, one that is amplified by a certain ramshackle tenderness.

Album opener Rid of Me rocks from the first note and states his intention to never waver: “Whatever way the wind might blow / Whatever way the river flows / Whatever happens I’m stayin’ close / You’ll never get rid of me.” Despite its melancholy subject matter, the folkish Allie Jane has the comforting familiarity of an old, much-worn pair of jeans. “Now it seems like everything is speedin’ up / Can’t remember when I lost track of keeping track / All that’s new is old again.”

For his mini-gig, Harness plays a thirty-year-old Takamine guitar his wife bought him. “It has weathered many trips and stages,” he remarked. “I’m playing on a stage set carefully decorated to look like my backyard. (Joking – I’m playing in my backyard.)”

As always, the best ways to support artists are to go to their shows and buy merchandise. But if Harness isn’t playing a gig near enough, you can buy some without the travel at his Bandcamp site. Follow him on Instagram and visit his website, but first press play and hear what the squirrels and bunnies heard during this recording.

God’s Footstool – In this early song, I humbly set myself the task of describing the cosmos and even titled a whole album God’s Footstool. It didn’t become a top ten hit, at least in this galaxy. I got the title from a remembered Biblical passage: “The heavens are God’s throne, and the earth is His footstool.” I sort of went from there.

Old Grey House – In the country, you can see lots of abandoned houses and decrepit, falling-apart barns that look like the skeletons of dinosaurs. In the city, you can see abandoned boarded-up houses too. At one time, they were built by people full of hope and looking to the future. Someday people will look at our homes and wonder who lived there.

Business As Usual – Just take a look around a world where money controls too many things money shouldn’t control and the human toll of that. In history, we see the human species keep doing the same things over and over again, just as it does today. Jimi Hendrix said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” I think we’re still in the love of power phase.

Musical pursuits in the heart of rural Canadian life.

Not only outside the music industry but within its margins (much less frequently at its very core), there are those for whom music is one of several activities to pursue. It’s a question not only related to the increasing difficulty of living off music without a head start, but also to personal circumstances and lifestyle choices. In the case of Wade Montpellier, he’s both a small-scale organic farmer by trade and the creative force behind his project, Mistaken For Wayne. However, he’s not alone in his musical efforts, as Mistaken For Wayne, the band, also benefits from the presence of Olivier Palkovits (lead guitar and backing vocals), Jonathan Danyliw (bass and backing vocals), Dylan Kelly (drums), and Matthew Wiewel (pedal steel).

Mistaken For Wayne’s debut album is titled Whitefish, and was recorded live off the floor at Studio Le Grease Trap in Sudbury, Ontario. There are hints of Neil Young and The Tragically Hip, but thematically the record takes a distinct direction of its own. Given Wade’s professional background, nature is unsurprisingly a key component of his personal imagery. Water, especially, is a recurring motif (even trickling its way into the song titles), though there are plenty of other allusions to the environment he grew up in. Even without this information, the lyrics come across as genuine accounts of his interests and preoccupations. Here, the embellishing nature of songwriting helps distil the torrent of real experience into succinct sketches that portray, with great honesty, the complex internal life of a young man who returns to his rural hometown.

“It’s been hard since the day I turned my back on the land”, he sings in one of many moments of candid rumination. Life as described by the narrator (or narrators) is inextricably tied to the natural world and one’s relationship to the past. And what is more closely linked to the lives of preceding generations than the toiling of the land and communion with nature? It may seem these are progressively archaic notions, but for many, like Mistaken for Wayne, it remains an undeniable reality. In the album’s penultimate track, the many-voiced choruses of This Time of Year reinforce a communal feeling you can easily imagine stretching back in time. And at the very end, once the last note is played, the whisper of running water takes you away into a natural soundscape as the album fades into silence.

To celebrate the release of his new album Alamo, which will be released on 13th November 2026 on Thirty Tigers, Jake Bugg has announced he will celebrate the release with a run of November in-store dates.

Produced by multi-Grammy-winning duo of longtime friend and producer Jimmy Hogarth (Anohni, Amy Winehouse, Paolo Nutini) and Steve McKewan (Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood, Eminem), Alamo sees Bugg return to his folk-leaning roots. He is now 32, which is reflected in an album described as “an 11-track testament to his matured craft as a songwriter and an open-hearted revelation of his journey as a man through love and loneliness and back again”.

Starting with a show at Circuit in Kingston on 8th November, Bugg will play 20 dates across the UK, including a show at London’s Rough Trade East on 16th November. Fans can expect intimate performances that showcase his “gritty and original” style, as well as live Q&As and signings on a number of dates throughout the tour. As a taste of what’s to come, you can see Bugg performing a new song in the Netherlands earlier this year in the video at the foot of this piece.

You can find details and booking arrangements for this run of in-store and out-store shows at this link.

Jake Bugg November 2026 In-store and Out-store dates:

Sun 8th  Circuit, Kingston With Banquet #
Thu 12th  Applestump, Nantwich +
Thu 12th   Rough Trade Nottingham*
Fri 13th  Rough Trade Nottingham +
Fri 13th  HMV, Birmingham The Vault +
Sat 14th  The Globe, Cardiff with Jacaranda*
Sat 14th  St Peter’s Marlborough with Sound Knowledge*
Sun 15th  O2 Academy, Oxford With Truckstore #
Mon 16th  Rough Trade East, London*
Tues 17th Music’s not Dead, Bexhill-On-Sea +
Tues 17th   Resident, Brighton +
Weds 18th  Just Dropped In, Coventry +
Weds 18th  O2 Academy, Leicester With Truck Store*
Thurs 19th  Jumbo, Leeds +
Thurs 19th  Old Fire Station, Carlisle with Jacaranda*
Fri 20th  HMV, Newcastle +
Sat 21st  Wax And Beans, Bury +
Sat 21st Rockin’ Chair, Wrexham with Jacaranda*
Sun 22nd  Assai, Edinburgh +
Sun 22nd  Assai, Dundee +

* Acoustic Performance, Q&A and Signing
+ Acoustic Performance and Signing
# Acoustic Performance and Q&A

In another part of the AUK jungle, I’ve been reading Chris Hillman’s autobiography, Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother and Beyond, for an upcoming Paperback Riders article. And it gave me reason to think about the longevity of some of our favourite artists. This clip was filmed in 2017, when he was 72, and while he may sing within the limitations age has imposed on his voice, he is playing and singing with a vigour that artists half his age would be happy with.

Hillman started his musical life with the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers. That band has become legendary as the jumping-off point for several Eagles, Byrds, and Burrito Brothers. Bluegrass and folk were Chris Hillman’s start, and in true “every journey ends up where it started” mode, it is the music he has returned to later in life. Mandolin has always been his first instrument, and when he was invited to join The Byrds on bass guitar, he developed a melodic style which was clearly influenced by his mandolin playing. His bass lines can be very hard to imitate due mainly to his unique right-hand technique, which is derived from how he picks a mandolin.

This version of the Pete Seeger classic starts with the 12-string guitar riff that Roger McGuinn created for the Byrds transposed to mandolin. This leans into the folky origins of the setting of the words from the book of Ecclesiastes. The instrumental section follows the well-worn bluegrass tradition of the solo following the vocal melody. Overall, it is an acoustic setting of the Byrds arrangement rather than following some of the folkier versions like Judy Collins’.

In researching this piece, I uncovered two interesting facts about Turn! Turn! Turn!. In 1963, Marlene Dietrich recorded Für alles kommt die Zeit (Glaub, Glaub), a German translation, recorded with Burt Bacharach. Also, that Pete Seeger has donated 45% of his royalties to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which describes itself as “a peace and human rights organisation dedicated to ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories and achieving a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians“. They use nonviolent direct action to try and prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and work to rebuild homes previously destroyed. While some of the language on their website is a little inflammatory, they seem to be doing something positive on the ground to improve life for people who need all the help they can get.

Brooklyn-based The Oystermen raise the mood with a set of energetic, infectious good-time tunes that are guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

The Oystermen describe themselves as “a trumpet-and-guitar Americana band from Brooklyn that knows how to bring the party.” Darn Tootin is the band’s sophomore album release, although it’s their first full-length release with a full-band lineup, following 2024’s eponymous debut release. The band started out as a duo, establishing their signature trumpet-and-guitar sound and developing a reputation for mixing jazz, roots, blues, country, and Appalachian folk.

This version of The Oysterman, based in Brooklyn, is very much not to be confused with another band dubbed The Oystermen: a trio based in Damariscotta, Maine, in which two of the three members work as oystermen. This trio released the album Basket of Oysters in 2020.

Darn Tootin consists of nine original songs, eight credited to Kyle Oleksiuk (aka band vocalist Ol’ Stanley) and one written by Oleksiuk with Sam Obrist (a New York-based singer-songwriter), along with five standards or traditional songs. In addition to Ol’ Stanley on vocals and rhythm guitar, the band’s membership extends to Jon Schneider on drums, David Silva (bass), Eddie Joe Antonio (trumpet) and Henry Plotnick on piano. The LP was recorded with the band playing ‘live’ in the studio, in an effort to capture the sound that the band makes in its gigs.

The record opens in rip-roaring fashion, with Blues Right Away (Bluegrass), one of two quite different versions of the same song, the bluegrass version featuring trumpet, mandolin and honky tonk piano solos. Following up is R Train Blues. The New York City subway’s R line runs from Queens, through Manhattan and on to Brooklyn. The song features some tongue-in-cheek lyrics, such as “When the escalator breaks at least you got some stairs, But when they cut off the power on that R train line, well baby you’re just standing there.” St. James Infirmary is a traditional song, which starts off slowly, this tempo lasting approximately a minute and a half, before the pace is picked up. St. James Infirmary was made famous when recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1928.

By the time the LP reaches its halfway point, you’re probably ready for a change of tempo and the Oleksiuk-penned Blue Star delivers it, Ol’ Stanley is in reflective mood, looking up at the night sky and finding a star that reminds him of love lost “Those wise men in the desert, Had something to look forward to, Cause that star in the north was leading them forth, But mine just reminds me of you.” The song benefits from trumpet and electric piano solos.

The other version of Blues Right Away, this time the Chicago edition, comes next, and it’s a slice of pure Chicago blues, with the solos this time being of the guitar and trumpet varieties. A Fool Such As I is a song that will be familiar to many people, being recorded multiple times, firstly being a hit in 1953 for Hank Snow (Now and Then There’s A Fool Such as I), but also by Elvis Presley, who hit the charts in 1959 with (Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such as I and others including Petula Clark and Bob Dylan.

If you are at all into this kind of music, you’re pretty much bound to enjoy this record. Rousing is an appropriate term to use in association with the band’s performances, so full of energy and infectious that it proves difficult to sit still while listening to it; why not try it? The Oystermen must be an absolute hoot to see live, particularly in a small, non-seated venue.

Tier one tickets on sale today!

If you’re not subscribing to our monthly supporters newsletter you’ll be missing out on our exclusive supporters playlist of the best new americana we’ve heard over the last few weeks which this month includes new tracks by This is Lorelei, Mary Gauthier, Our Man in the Field, Beck, Mama’s Broke and Richard Thompson among others – as always we trawl through the best Americana we’ve heard recently so you don’t have to.

For our fantastico giveaway for September for one lucky supporter we have a pair of tickets to next year’s Cambridge Folk Festival which takes place from Friday 30th July – Sunday 1st August at Cherry Hinton Hall. Tier One tickets are now available from here, with the exciting news that Friday night has been added to the line-up, so next year’s event will be a 3-day weekend. In a sensational start for 2027, Early Bird tickets, which were released in mid-September, sold out in less than 1 hour.

A variety of ‘Cambridge Folk Festival Presents’ events in multiple venues across the city during the run up to the Cherry Hinton Hall weekend will return for 2027, after the overwhelming success of this innovative new initiative earlier this year. There are further details coming soon.

A spokesperson for the Festival said: “The response to 2027 has been fantastic, with our Early Bird tickets selling out in less than an hour. It’s a great start and shows just how much enthusiasm there is for the Cambridge Folk Festival. We’re now releasing Tier One tickets and, following the success of our city events in 2026, we’re also looking forward to announcing our 2027 city programme in the coming months. There’s lots more to come as we build towards another great Festival in Cambridge.”

Tier One Weekend ticket prices are: Adult £160, Concession/Young Adult (14-25) £130, 0-13 FREE. Weekend Parking £20; Camping £60

You can become an AUK supporter for as little as £2.99 a month for which princely sum you will receive a monthly exclusive supporters playlist along with being entered into our monthly prize draw. We all give our time freely to bring this site to you each day so thanks for your support if you can help out.

As I proceeded to pull into a convenient parking space, a stone’s throw from the doors of the Town Hall, Kirton in Lindsey, home of Americana music in Lincolnshire, I noticed that the circus was in town. Now, I must admit it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the circus, probably as far back as the early 1970s, as a child. So long that, in truth, I was somewhat surprised to see it still exist as a touring operation, and I must confess to having little idea as to what the entertainment consists of these days. It’s true, all forms of entertainment have their period in the spotlight, a time when fashion and taste look favourably upon them before feeling the cold shoulder from future generations in search of the next new thing and the myriad of options that modern technology continues to offer. And of course that fate is not exclusive to the circus, with music just as susceptible to the fickle finger of fate; regardless of the quality of the performers on stage, promoters are finding it increasingly difficult to sell tickets and fill halls. Local promoter Brian Chudley has been more successful than most, thanks to well over a decade of hard work building the town hall up to becoming one of the ‘must-play venues’ in the country for both established acts as well as the next crop of aspiring singer-songwriters from around the globe. However, even he will concede that it’s been far from easy, and his tireless work is much appreciated by the local congregation.

This evening’s line-up sees two artists returning to a venue that has been instrumental in supporting them through the early part of their careers, with the opening act this evening being none other than the recent winner of the Americana UK Twang Factor competition, Maggie May Treanor, more of which later, while the headliner tonight saw Joe Martin returning to a stage on which he has performed numerous times over the last six or seven years. Earlier this year saw the release of Martin’s sophomore album Alone In Valentine, to widespread acclaim, including in these very pages. Recorded in September 2025, the album was co-produced by Cornelius Webb, son of the legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb, and Cal Campbell, son of the equally legendary singer-guitarist Glen Campbell, and, along with a group of top-class session players, helped to take Martin’s songs and create a musical bridge between classic country and a sound more rooted in the flavour of Americana.

Despite the new album’s broad production, tonight’s show is strictly a solo performance, with Martin dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Kicking off the first of two sets with Hand Me Down Heart, the opening track from the new album, Martin immediately drew the evening’s audience in close with one of the finest songs he’s written today, and one of the best songs so far in 2026. Stripped back to just voice and guitar, the song lost none of its energy; Martin’s vocals, always out of the highest drawer, now reveal a greater sense of confidence and power in the delivery, while his underrated guitar playing, combining rhythm with subtle lead lines, helped to create a more intimate listening experience compared to the album version. That theme continued as Martin chronologically played his way through the first half of Alone in Valentine, with the infectious upbeat Checkmate closely followed by the achingly beautiful Strangers To Lovers, a co-write with Vinnie Paolizzi, whom he originally met in Nashville as one of several serendipitous meetings that would eventually lead to the recording of the new album. In between songs, and to fill the void whilst re-tuning his guitar, Martin would regale the audience with more tales of his time in Nashville and those chance encounters, one of which was with the award-winning filmmaker Steve Anderson, who had recently directed the music documentary 10 Year Town, which featured emerging Americana songwriters, including Paolizzi. Anderson would also go on to co-write the album’s title track with Martin, as well as shoot the accompanying video after the two made a three-day visit to the actual town of Valentino, Texas and its population of seventy-three. Tonight, Martin’s evocative narrative and reflective delivery transported the local congregation all the way across the ocean to that West Texas town, the sparse accompaniment helping to recreate the expansive landscape and the sense of isolation.

Another bona fide classic song from the new album Coal Town followed next, with its storyline evolving around the closed coal mines of Ohio, though in truth the essence of the narrative would work just as easily were it set in the lost mining town of Wales or the north of England. Again, it’s the combination of a descriptive narrative and a strong melody, skillfully brought together by a vocal delivery with just the right amount of reflective integrity, that ensures the song penetrates the senses so as to remain long after the evening’s performance has passed. It is surely a masterclass in evocative songwriting.

The remainder of the first set saw Martin turn the focus to one of his heroes, the legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb. Firstly, with a cover version of the song Highwayman, the classic song that the heavyweight quartet of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson would record and use as their collective name, followed by Galveston, which provided Glen Campbell with one of his biggest hits. The choice of covers was understandable considering the close working relationship Martin had developed with the offspring of these two musical legends, but what it demonstrated, for the umpteenth time already this evening, was the power and maturity of his voice, with a sagacious delivery that belied his still relatively youthful years. Squeezed between these two country standards was another song from the new album, with Brown Paper Bag more than holding its own, suggesting a faint similarity in writing style to the aforementioned Kristofferson. A weighty accolade but fully deserved.

The second half opened with Money For The Needy, the only track from this evening’s set list to have first appeared on Martin’s debut album Empty Passenger Seat. Though initially this seemed somewhat surprising, in truth it probably proved a perfect indicator as to how far Martin has come in the intervening years, as a songwriter and as a performer, and that, in many ways, he has outgrown those older songs. That interpretation felt all the stronger with two more tracks from Alone In Valentine, with the reflective Man You Need and the heart-aching honesty embedded in its narrative, followed by the uptempo Backstreet Driver, which again showcased some delightful guitar playing, full of arpeggio runs and an infectious rhythmic beat. In between, Martin threw in another cover of a Glen Campbell hit, this time Gentle On My Mind, supported by a humorous tale of getting to perform on stage with Carl Jackson, longtime banjo player in Campbell’s band

There was still time for one more song from the new album with Silhouettes and Sunsets that Martin described as a tribute to another of his heroes, this time Roy Orbison, before closing the second set with yet another Campbell classic, and an exquisite rendition of Wichita Lineman. Needless to say, the audience that had been in good voice throughout demanded an encore, and after a few minutes Martin returned to perform one more song from Campbell’s back catalogue, this time from the end of the great man’s career and another written by Webb, as Adios brought the evening’s show to a perfect close.

Opening proceedings this evening and making her second visit to this hallowed stage after a very successful appearance supporting Canadian singer-songwriter Lynn Hanson eighteen months ago was none other than Maggie May Treanor. Yorkshire-based Treanor is the current recipient of the ‘Americana UK Twang Factor’ award, a competition designed to discover the best new and emerging Americana acts from around the world. On the back of that success, her touring schedule has increased significantly, and she recently completed an extremely successful tour of the Emerald Isles.

This evening, Treanor was accompanied by Band of Steves guitarist Steve Collington and opened her seven-song set with a relatively new number entitled Fifty-Fifty, which, with its emotive narrative and strong melody, instantly struck a chord with the evening’s enthusiastic congregation, proving to be another excellent addition to Treanor’s already flourishing canon of work. This was followed by This Time Emily, the song that saw Treanor win the AUK competition, and which has already become something of a classic with its backstory of a wild night in Mendocino, California, and the chance meeting with a runaway girl, one of many known as the ‘Rainbow Children’, and its tale of courage and restless energy.

Treanor is an outstanding vocalist; her emotive power, soulful and bluesy in equal measure, offers an occasional nod towards Christine McVie, and yet at the same time her phrasing and reflective narrative deliver a sagacious poignancy that draws comparison to great exponents of the Americana genre such as Emmylou Harris. Singing, often with her eyes closed, expressive and animated, her poetry regularly pulls on the heartstrings, as on the exquisite Just Because, and yet is just as adept at the double entendre, as in the equally popular Chicken Thighs.

Needless to say, her set ended far too soon for the audience who would have quite happily listened to another seven songs at the very least. However, Treanor has one more treat for everyone, with a new song that, on this first hearing, is clearly going to be another crowd favourite: Gonna Stay, originally written as a solo piano piece, but here working wonderfully well with guitar accompaniment. Treanor had earlier in her set informed the audience that an album has been recorded, but as yet there is no date for release. Let’s all hope that date is not too far away, as Treanor is an exceptionally talented singer-songwriter who deserves the widest recognition.

This week’s podcast sees Keith talking to two great songwriters. Cam Fraser of Boulder Fields, in the week of the release of Nothing Age, and Mary Gauthier, in the week of her release, Reckoning. Both very different albums, but both shot through with class. There’s also a dynamic coming together by The Dreaming Spires and Annie Keating on the single to celebrate their tour together. And there’s new stuff from Twilark and an anniversary classic from Mercury Rev. Autumn may be in the air, but so are some very good sounds.

The remarkable thing about today’s track, The Werewolf Song, is that it comes from the first album by Michael Hurley. Remarkable because it is a song of some rare depth, full of disturbing imagery, set to a discordant accompaniment and sung in a way that, after one listen, can never be forgotten. That debut album, First Songs, came out originally in 1964, and it is now going to be rereleased by Smithsonian Folkways on November 6th. Even the background to the album is remarkable – after leaving Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where Hurley was recovering for six months from hepatitis, mononucleosis, and early traces of tuberculosis from a bohemian life in Greenwich Village, Hurley began renting a small stone house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Not far away lived Frederic Ramsey Jr., who recorded First Songs in his own New Jersey home, eschewing a professional recording studio at Hurley’s request, and kicking off Hurley’s lifelong practice of crafting lo-fi (a term he claimed to have invented) homemade recordings. Ramsey used the same reel-to-reel tape machine to record Hurley that he had used in 1948 for what became Lead Belly’s Last Sessions (which is also available on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings). This new vinyl LP reissue of First Songs includes the original liner notes by Ramsey. 

And by way of a “visualizer”, we have an animation by Hurley’s friend Drew Christie, who describes sharing the animation years ago with Hurley himself: “When I finished the animation, I showed it to Michael down in Astoria, and he loved it right away. He said, ‘That’s always how I pictured him moving and stepping! You got it!’”