My favourite album of the year is the cover versions Kate Rusby recorded with her partner Damien O'Kane. Hand Me Down is a varied collection with some songs new to me and others being old favourites that I can sing along to. Good medicine for these troubled times.
Runner-up would be Fabian Holland's atmospheric album Under the Red Island Bakery which he recorded in Germany and is a suitable soundtrack to these emotionally-challenging months that we have all endured thanks to Covid-19.
Discovery of the Year is Katie Spencer. Someone on the Talkawhile message board requested a song of hers during the first lockdown and she is one of the best young singer/songwriter guitarists I've come across in the last few years. Recently she was filmed supporting Michael Chapman at a venue in York, the concert subsequently being broadcast online.
There is, of course, no Top 10 list of gigs for 2020, my last live music experience having been She Shanties supported by Paddy Garrigan & The Stroller Priests in Morecambe back in February. But there have been enjoyable online gigs ranging from the memorable sight of Chris Wood sat playing his guitar in an upturned wheelbarrow in a shed in his back garden to the impressive surroundings of Sezincote Estate in The Cotswolds where Show of Hands, along with Johnny Kalsi, were filmed back in September.
So here is my Top 10 New Releases of 2020.
Deep Cabaret - Matchless
Kris Drever - Where The World Is Thin
Kim Edgar - Held
Fairport Convention - Shuffle and Go
Chris Flegg - Twenty's Plenty
Fabian Holland - Under the Red Island Bakery
Sarah Jarosz - World on the Ground
The Levellers - Peace
Kate Rusby - Hand Me Down
Katie Spencer - Live at Acoustic Roots
Colin Bertram
