This week we begin to listen to some of the best new music from 2017. It’s been an unusually strong year, and this week we’ll focus on traditional based music from the UK and the US. We’ll feature Windborne, Offa Rex, Eliza Carthy & the Wayward Band, Carol Elizabeth Jones, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn and many more. It’s The Best of 2017, part one … this week on The Sing Out! Radio Magazine.

LISTEN:

Artist / “Title” / CD / Label

Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle /
              Smithsonian Folkways
Spencer & Rains / “Stony Point” / The Skeleton Keys / Tiki Parlour Recordings
Windborne / “Song of the Lower Class” / Song on the Times / Self Produced
Laura Smyth & Ted Kemp / “Alizon Device” / The Poacher’s Fate / Broken Token
Offa Rex / “Flask Company” / The Queen of Hearts / Nonesuch

Martin Simpson / “Reynardine” / Trails and Tribulations / Topic
Alasdair Fraser / “Silver and Stuff” / Ports of Call / Culburnie
Eliza Carthy & the Wayward Band / “Sunny Afternoon” / Big Machine / Topic
Spencer & Rains / “Oberek” / The Skeleton Keys / Tiki Parlour Recordings

Carol Elizabeth Jones / “Lord Bateman” / Big Bend Killing / Great Smoky Mountain Assoc.
Bruce Greene / “Sheeps in the Meadow and the Cows in the Corn” / River in Time / Self
              Produced
Joe Newberry & April Verch / “I Can’t Sit Down” / Going Home / Slab Town

Alice Gerrard & Kay Justice / “Tear Down the Fences” / Tear Down the Fences / Kbell
Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn / “Over the Divide” / Echo in the Valley / Rounder
The Bucking Mules / “Wild Geese at Flight” / Smoke Behind the Clouds / Free Dirt
Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle /
              Smithsonian Folkways