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I forgot to plug in my headphones, so I couldn't hear that this track had ended, and Maria had already started up, so I started her up again!

Recorded live at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA, with the Chambers Brothers on backing vocals. A live album with 12 great tracks of gospel sung by Maria, the Chambers Brothers and the Burns Sisters.

From Prine’s 2nd album. Acoustic guitar – David Bromberg; electric guitar – Steve Goodman. Album produced by Arif Mardin.

This single, released in 1966, got to #6 on Billboard’s R&B chart. It’s been covered by Bonnie Raitt and Etta James.

This duet by Ray Charles and George Jones, the only one they ever did together, was produced by Billy Sherrill and features Chet Atkins on guitar.

This album by Tom Russell has been described as an Immigrant Song Cycle, a folk opera loosely based on the history of Russell’s family. His great grandmother came from Ireland during the famine to the Midwest and his great grandfather came from Norway. This stunning vocal by Iris DeMent has Annbjorg Lien accompanying on the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.

Will always love ya’, Richie!

'When she started playing guitar, Rory Block was lucky enough to accompany her friend Stefan Grossman to the home of the Rev. Gary Davis and watch the instructions Davis gave her pal. The experience influenced her own path as a blues guitarist, and she pays her debt to Davis on this album with fierce renditions of 11 songs Davis wrote or introduced to the world. She has adapted elements of the Reverend's playing, including rolling finger and thumb arpeggios and a driving complexity that allows her to play lead and rhythm at the same time, often giving the impression of two guitarists playing together.

Never released as a single, this was an album cut on ‘For Certain Because...’, released in 1966. There were no harmony or background vocals. For the Hollies, that was even more unusual than Graham Nash singing lead, as that was usually Allan Clarke’s domain. Is that a Vox Mando-guitar.

Sister Sadie’s first full-length release since 2018. That album was nominated for a GRAMMY. Sister Sadie was the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year in 2020, as well as Vocal Group of the Year in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Released in 1928 on Paramount shellac 78, backed by ‘Prison Cell Blues”. Jefferson was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues".

This little ditty recalls Julie Miller’s kinship with Victoria Williams.

Released as a single in October 1966, it was included on the album ‘Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful’ the following month. The track features an interplay of guitars between Zal Yanovsky and John Sebastian, including a Ditson acoustic twelve-string and a pedal steel guitar. Yanovsky added further elements with his Guild Thunderbird electric guitar. To generate a French horn-like sound, he turned the treble off on his guitar but turned up the amplifier's treble and gain, resulting in distortion and the beginning of feedback. There’s an Irish harp in there, as well!

Russell calls her new album "The Returner" an articulation of rhythm, groove and syncopation, “a re-embodiment, a coming back into my own body and celebrating it despite all the scars and bruises and the trauma I survived”, she says. Here Russell ‘revels in the pure liberating delight of making sound.’

This is ‘a very honest and natural-sounding’ collection of tracks from an American treasure’; a pleasant gem. "We weren't trying to create the latest blockbuster. The challenge was to keep it simple and know when it was finished - not having 75 guitar solos on one song”, says Boz.

Marks failed to make it as a Country artist in the early 2000s, and pretty much gave up for a while. She kept performing but only recently returned to recording, inspired by recent efforts to change the conversation in the industry. Her music takes influences from country, gospel, blues, soul and so fits nicely into Americana – a genre which strives to be inclusive and offers a hand to those who have never really fit in elsewhere.

Johnston’s been called ‘one of the best songwriters of his generation’ for good reason. Album produced by Butch Vig.

In early 1967, after releasing several ballady songs, Springfield returned to her original upbeat sound here, as exemplified by her first world-wide hit, “I Only Want To Be With You”.

In early 1993, Cash recorded an album’s worth of songwriting demos. Then he met producer Rick Rubin, and the recordings were shelved. Some 30 years later, John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash, rediscovered the songs and stripped them back to just Johnny’s powerful, pristine vocals and acoustic guitar. A handpicked group of musicians that played with Johnny were invited to breathe new life into the tracks, taking the sound back to the roots and heart of the songs. This is one of those songs. It’s about finding love in of all places, the laundry mat. For Georgie Cooper!

Dirk Powell, harmony vocal, fiddle, accordion, baritone electric guitar, percussion; slide guitar by Sonny Landreth. ‘I wrote this song for my husband, Marc Savoy, who still after many years of marriage remains a mystery, steeped in French genes going back centuries. Tough, profound, to be handled with care, Marc is full of old stories and beautiful old French words.”

New album by Thompson, recorded in Woodstock, NY, is being released the end of May. ‘And who wants his brain? The silly poor old dunce. They say he hardly used it; he might have used it once.”

Born in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Jacobs moved between hippie communes during her childhood. "My dad's Filipino, my mom's white, and my step grandmother and cousins are African-American. Growing up, our apartment looked like the UN. That's one of the reasons I love Americana music. It's inclusive. It makes room for everything. Traditional genres have become so segregated, and I want to break that mold", she says.

Album recorded at Windmill Lane Recording Studio, Dublin. Arcady was one of the most-respected traditional bands in Ireland. It was created by ace bodhran player Johnny ("Ringo") McDonagh when he left De Dannan in 1988.

The album was recorded live at the Tulsa studio best known as the home base of the late, great Leon Russell, a huge influence and personal friend of Taj. Mahal first recorded this, his signature tune, for his landmark 1968 album ‘The Natch'l Blues’.

The Lonesome Sisters are acoustic old-time music duo Debra Clifford and Sarah Hawker. That’s a fretless gourd banjo.

Scottish folk rock band formed in 1983 by Mike Scott. That’s him on vocal, piano, drums and bowed bouzouki.

First recorded by the Stanley Brothers in 1960, the song’s ‘meaning has often been debated. To some, it’s about a Civil War veteran returning from battle to find his world not only irrevocably changed, but strangely alien as well. To others, the meaning is more spiritual than literal, it’s about death, the transcendence and an afterlife.’ Vocal by Rhonda Vincent.

Vocals – Mary Gauthier; Vocals, Electric Guitar – Scrappy Jud Newcomb; Vocals, Fiddle – Darcie Deaville; Vocals, Lap Steel Guitar – Jon Dee Graham.

Recorded in Chicago in 1935 for Decca Records. That’s Minnie on vocal and guitar.

A single release in 1968, it was Pitney’s final top-40 hit. I hear an ‘electric sitar’ in there!

Guitar by Greg Leisz. This album, Lizz’s second, reached #1 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz chart.

On Smither’s 20th album, we are ‘welcomed into some gothic mansion on an imaginary New Orleans street.’ “When I was a kid my next-door neighbor was a man named Boudreaux from Thibodaux, LA. I made up the rest of the story as a chance to use a few French terms and throw out some cultural references from Cajun country.” David Goodrich on diddley bow; BettySoo on vocals. Smither live: 5/17 - Fall River, MA – Narrows Ctr for Arts; 5/18 Boston, MA – City Winery Boston.