by Sheldon Birnie
Well, we’ve been lucky so far this year here in lovely Winnipeg, MB. No flood, no mosquitoes yet, no ticks. Not yet. And there’s a bunch of great music pumping out of the local folk scene here, too.
New releases by Jenny Berkel and Keri Latimer have both rolled across the Stylus desk in the past week. Berkel’s Here on a Wire is a nice little disc, reminiscent of Christine Fellow‘s 2 Little Birds and the softer moments of The Last One Standing. Latimer’s release, Crowsfeet and Greyskull, is everything you’d expect from the songstress: beautiful melodies, well crafted tunes and tight arrangements. In fact, Fellow’s even contributes some piano to a couple tracks on Crowsfeet and Greyskull. Neat!
Both are great discs to be playing on a grey spring afternoon, sipping tea or nursing a hangover. Check our June/July edition for reviews of both. That puppy hits the streets June 7th.
Del Barber’s new disc came out yesterday too. Headwaters is Barber’s best disc yet, his song writing skills honed sharper than his earlier two releases. Check out my conversation with Del here.
Local tunesmith’s Rambling Dan Frechette and JP Hoe and country soul diva Sol James have also got new albums to unveil. I haven’t heard any of them, yet, but am looking forward to giving them a spin shortly. And we will be talking with JP Hoe next week here on the Hillbilly Highway, so make sure to stop on by for that.
And that’s about all I have time for here this week, friends. Times are fast out here on the Highway these days, so I’ll make like a tree and leaf the fuck out. See you soon.