Music Box 15th April 2023

We start with Houtakker, the alias of US artist Justin Fernando, and The Spirit Of Invention, from his LP Houtakker (Twosyllable Records 2012). Buy here.

Now for something from this year. This is Margo Price (website), an American country singer-songwriter, producer, and author born in Aledo, Illinois, but now based in Nashville, Tennessee. This is Lydia, from her fourth and most recent album, Strays (Loma Vista 2023). Buy here or from her website.

Evie Sands (born July 18, 1946 in Brooklyn) is an American singer, songwriter and musician whose had more than her fair share of bad luck. Sands' music career spans more than 50 years. She began her career as a teenager in the mid-1960s. After a rocky start, she eventually found chart success in 1969, before retiring from performing in 1979 to concentrate on writing and production. She experienced a fashionable, UK-led surge in cult popularity beginning in the 1990s and returned to live performance in mid-1998. Sands continues to write and perform. This is It's This I Am, I Find, the B-side to her single Take Me For A Little While (A&M 7” 1970), also found on her debut LP Take Me For A Little While (A&M 1970), simply as It's This I Am. Beautiful song.

Tender Engines were a 90s indie pop band from Melbourne, Australia. This is the delightful Girl From The Hinterland, an added bonus track to the CD version of their second single With Regret (Summershine 7”/CD 1993). Buy here.

We conclude with a couple of superb tracks from Haley Bonar, a Canada born singer/songwriter from St Pauls Minnesota. In March 2017 Haley Bonar announced she was changing her legal name to Haley McCallum and her performing name to HALEY. First, Bad Reputation (Noiseland 7” 2012), then Eat For Free, both from her seventh LP Last War (Graveface/Memphis Industries 2014). Until next week ...