Paul Russell

Photo by Alejandro Menéndez Vega Of all the recent musicians we have sadly lost in recent times, the tragic news of the passing of Raul Malo last year was one of the most gut-wrenching for me. He was only 60 years old but had announced in 2024 that he was suffering from cancer, and the world lost a truly shining light in the annals of americana. He’d begun blasting his way into the punk clubs in Miami before he fronted the wonderful Mavericks for over thirty years.

The Rutland Troubadour returns for album number four. Paul McClure, on his fourth album, decided to go to pastures new and left the rural north and travelled south to East Sussex and the fine Bex-Pop Studios in Bexhill-on-Sea. For this album, Trevor Moss took over the production duties and provided bass, mandolin, banjo, and harmonica, as well as fellow musicians Thure Johansen on electric guitar and resonator guitar, violinist Henry Bristow, and Moss’s wife, Hannah-Lou, on vocals.

There are some songs that just hit the spot. Songs that one instantly adores and that have an almost profound effect on you and that you keep coming back to year after year. It’s been nearly thirty years since I first heard this song, and it sounds as fresh and wonderful now to me as it did when I first heard it.