American Patchwork Quartet

The clue is in the name. This terrific quartet led by visionary roots guitarist/vocalist/arranger Clay Ross celebrate America’s Indigenous folk heritage by embroidering 14 traditional songs with brave new multi-cultural threads to create a musical quilt of wonderfully diverse hues – rather like an American equivalent of what the late Simon Emmerson did for English folk music with The Imagined Village project.

A veteran musical adventurer who has twice won a Grammy for best regional roots album, Ross is joined here by jazz bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Clarence Penn and the singer Falu Shah, who exudes star quality. On ‘Beneath the Willow’ she transports a Carter Family song halfway across the world with haunting Indian microtones. She then repeats the global migration to even greater effect on ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ before delivering a version of ‘Shenandoah’ as achingly beautiful as you’re ever likely to hear. With its chiming guitars ‘Pretty Saro’ belongs in the same camp as The Byrds’ reimagining of old folk songs while ‘Soul of a Man’ and ‘John the Revelator’ are radical reinventions of a brace of old blues songs by Blind Willie Johnson. From start to finish, it’s all pretty much irresistible.