Southend on Sea's Matthew (M.G.) Boulter talks about 'Americana', Essex, cabin fever, Bob Brozman and the perils of playing lap steel guitar for Simone Felice.

He looks a little like Ray LaMontagne, dapper in a smart waistcoat, bright white shirt and heavily bearded, just prior to a gig at the Shakespeare in Sheffield. Smiling, gentle and polite, he's an engaging figure, as he talks enthusiastically about a musical journey that has taken him from Essex to the Catskill…

Ian Felice, lead singer of New York State’s Felice Brothers is pale and wan, his clothes hang off his coat hanger like shoulders. Not really the interview type, he visibly winced as I asked him about the cancelled UK Tour (Dec 2011). "Yeah, the Tour got cancelled because I developed shingles on my face. I went to see a Doctor in Berlin and they were really concerned ‘cos it was really close to my eye and apparently that can affect your eyesight. So they told me to rest and we had…

When the Guardian (UK) newspaper's music critic described Simon Felice as possessing a 'rare fiery brilliance' you could be forgiven for suspecting hyperbole. Fiddle player and backing singer Simi Stone, referred to him as 'the man', at the end of her support slot in Nottingham. So I wondered, just what prompts such Reverence?

I caught up with ‘the man' himself on the canal bank just an hour before the Glee Club gig near the end of his latest UK Tour. Dressed in long trench…

Alan J Taylor met up with Richmond Fontaine’s Willy Vlautin recently at the Greystones, Sheffield, UK.

Just after the release of We Used To Think The Highway Sounded Like A River, Richmond Fontaine’s front man and principle song writer Willy Vlautin, had insisted that he was doing his utmost best to write a ‘Coles Corner’ as in the style of Sheffield’s own Richard Hawley. After listening to the new CD The High Country,…