Are you tired of electric guitars? Fed up with the sound of oscillators, filters and shapers? Do you yearn for the sweeter tones of traditional musical instruments? Then Acoustic Environment by Mark Hillis is the album for you. Mark is a guitarist and photographer from San Diego, California. During his college years he teamed up with…Read more Acoustic Environment
folk
Shiloh
It's a year now since Crotchety Man retired - a year plus a week since my last day at work and a year minus a week since I officially ceased to be employed. Over those last twelve months I have moved 100 miles south, swapping the busy tourist city of York for the relative quiet of a Leicestershire village, and…Read more Shiloh
The Rising Sun
This time, for my Track Of The Week, I'm going to do something a bit different. Instead of focusing on a specific recording I'm going to explore about a dozen different versions of the same song: The House of the Rising Sun. The link is to a Spotify playlist containing recordings from 1941 to 2001…Read more The Rising Sun
Falling
A band called Here We Go Magic cropped up a couple of times recently. They were mentioned on a blog I follow and Guy Garvey (of Elbow) featured them on one of his radio shows. Out of curiosity I looked them up on Spotify. They're an interesting band. A touch on the happy-slappy side for…Read more Falling
Greensleeves
The Crotchety clan is going back in time again. Mrs Crotchety and her daughter are going way back to the Jurassic era of pre-history (as portrayed in the film sets of Jurassic World). And, while they're at the cinema, Crotchety Man is visiting Tudor England. Henry VIII has been dead for more than 40 years, Elizabeth I…Read more Greensleeves
Scarborough Fair
For my next track of the week I'm going to Scarborough Fair. It's a journey of around 150 miles from where I live now to the seaside town of Scarborough on the north east coast of England. I'll have to travel back in time, too, because the fair hasn't been held since 1788, but that's OK; time…Read more Scarborough Fair
Crazy Man Michael
One sunny Spring morning Mrs Crotchety and I decided to drive over to Melton Mowbray and explore our nearest market town. There's a very pretty area by the church but it's not a particularly attractive place on the whole. It's mainly known for pork pies (Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe is famous) and Stilton cheese. There was also a well-documented episode in 1837 in…Read more Crazy Man Michael
The Queen of Elfland
Somewhere in the backwoods of Alaska there's a singer/songwriter/guitarist who makes beautiful music and gives it away. Why? Because we already have enough 'stuff'; what we lack is 'human connection'. So, rather than burn CDs and ship them thousands of kilometres across the globe, he makes his songs available (for free) on his website. His name is Kray…Read more The Queen of Elfland
Lay Lady Lay
A lot of complex, challenging music has featured on this blog recently so I'm going to choose a nice simple song as my track of the week: Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay. (There should be commas in there really but it's usually written without the punctuation and I'll stick with that convention.) The first time I…Read more Lay Lady Lay
Streets of London
If Leonard Cohen's songs are poems set to music then Ralph McTell's are stories. He tells them like your favourite uncle did as you sat on his knee as a kid. There's a warmth in his voice and a chuckle in his eyes as he lets the story slowly unfold. In Streets of London, though, there's a…Read more Streets of London
Crotchety Man 