June 2021 added thoughts: hardly an update as you'll find all I have to say in this short piece and some very astute comments posted by readers when the article originally appeared earlier in the Cover Story series ... just... Read more →
June 2021 update: there is no specific anniversary to justify reposting this item though it is half a century this year (inconveniently earlier this year) that Leonard Cohen's Joan of Arc was first released. And we're far too soon, as... Read more →
June 2021 update: back in 2017, when I first published this quick look at the outstanding Suzanne Vega song, The Queen and the Soldier, I promised to add details of the arrangement used by Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts for... Read more →
May 2021 update: Mná na H-éireann in Gaelic, Women of Ireland in English, is a thing of beauty, whether as song or tune. The idea of republishing this instalment of Cover Story, a popular and long-running series comparing different versions... Read more →
May 2021 update: Ralph McTell’s second most famous song. I have been an admirer of his music for decades. I first saw him at the Sunderland Empire, taking the stage a little nervously after a pulsating support set from Lindisfarne,... Read more →
May 2021 update: this was only the third instalment of our Cover Story series, one now stretching to around 70. At the time, I was wondering aloud whether the place Iris DeMent had in mind when writing and singing about... Read more →
May 2021 update: on Sunday, the eve of Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, I will publish a selection of beautiful tributes from UK artists and writers. One of the contributors who responded to my invitation, the writer Colin Irwin, describes the... Read more →
