When sister site of the Yellow Bird Project, analog.am approached us and asked us if we’d like to pick our favourite albums for an FFS-themed vinyl shelf, it was a foregone conclusion. There is nothing Team FFS likes more than pondering our favourite records. When you’re in your front room with a glass of...
Rae Morris is a 19-year-old musician from Blackpool (UK), and team FFS reckon she’ll be next to hit UK’s ‘big things’. With Rae’s genius voice, she combines powerful lyrics with sublime, simple piano melodies to create a unique musical style. I was lucky enough to chat to Rae moments before her set at Defector’s...
For Folk’s Sake ‘Writes Songs Joni Mitchell Would Be Proud Of’ Award Who’s would you say is the best songwriter around today? The excellent folk at Now Playing are hosting the 6music blog awards, and we’re jolly excited to be hosting an award. You can vote right here for the winner of the For...
We play tracks from The Leisure Society, Fleet Foxes, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, and FFS’s reviews editor Ian Parker calls in for a chat about the best new albums. There’s also two tracks from Brian’s mixtape: Imitation & Flattery, which is a selection of our favourite covers. And we kindly let producer Mark...
After a break for Coffee and Cake, Brian’s back on his musical tour of the U.S.A., this time touring around the great state of California. Home to surfer bums, angels and oranges, California has more than its fair share of lovely spots, and this playlist demonstrates this in vintage style, with tracks by the legendary...
We know Joni Mitchell Week was last week, but we’ve just had this submission from one Laura Marling, who’s been busy galavanting all over the States, and we just couldn’t leave it out. Laura’s said on many occasions that Joni’s a big influence, having been introduced to Joni’s records by her music-loving father. Over...
“I’m traveling in some vehicle/ I’m sitting in some cafe/ A defector from the petty wars/ Until love sucks me back that way” Hejira represented a new peak of sophistication in Joni Mitchell’s writing when it appeared on Asylum Records in November 1976. Reactions to her third-person narratives on 1975′s The Hissing of Summer...
Clouds was Joni Mitchell’s second album and won her a Grammy for best folk performance in 1970. I didn’t know the album’s biography before I came to write this piece because when you come to an artist with a large back catalogue you don’t necessarily hear their songs, or buy their albums, in the...
It had been a hard and gratifying spring. I was all lean muscle and mudstains after months of climbing trees at the Manchester airport protest camp and feeling good from all the fresh air, living in benders, hitching, cooking outdoors and dangling from blue polyprop. I’d helped build treehouses, had close encounters with owls,...
In 1972, two Canadian musicians released amazing folk albums, both coincidentally featuring songs about heroin addicts. Despite the links between Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, listening to Harvest and For The Roses I feel like they were never really trying to play the same music. Everyone recognises that Joni’s voice is sublime and has...
#76 The Wood Brothers - Midnight Rider May 18th, 2013
#75 Hero & Leander - Kiss Me By The Water Cooler May 17th, 2013
#74 Penniless Cove - Monsoon Rain May 16th, 2013