Caught by the River

Wye oh Wye

8th September 2010

Jeff,

You fished the Wye recently? I’m sick with jealousy. I’ve not fished it for a couple of years. It’s one of my favourite parts of the country and one of my favourite rivers.

Something for you – are you aware of Sam Baker? Texan singer songwriter. There’s lots of them about but he’s a cut above. I caught a track on Bob Harris recently and it stopped me in my tracks. I can’t stop playing his three albums ‘Mercy’, ‘Pretty World’ & ‘Cotton’. Musically its fairly straight alt country but he writes great, GREAT songs.

Interesting back story too – he was travelling in Peru in the 80’s and was on a train that was bombed by the Shining Path. Suffered a number of serious injuries, had to re-learn to play the guitar with his left hand, still suffers from hearing problems, it affected his speech – his vocal style is almost spoken and slightly off the beat. Almost Dylan-esque.

He’s definitely worth a dip. Touring the UK through September.

I hope all is well otherwise. Catch you at the next Social and the Caitlin gig.

Cheers,

Andy Townsend

PS audio piece on Kurt Jackson in the Guardian today.