From Granmaw and Me

These are the last recordings that the American singer and banjo player Hedy West ever made before she died in 2005, but you wouldn’t know it from her performances here. Her voice is in fine fettle, backed by beautifully warm-sounding fiddle and acoustic guitar from Tracey Schwartz, on a set of songs that take her full circle, ensuring the repertoire of her grandmother lives on. Whether it's tear-jerking hokum, righteous gospel – ‘The Uncloudy Day’ is truly uplifting in the powerful way that old-time mountain gospel can be – or songs about getting drunk, everything is given the clear diction and forceful vibrato that West honed over the decades.

‘Blokader Mama’ is a rather over-the-top sentimental song about the hardships that a mother is put through in order to raise her children (‘we ain’t got nothin’ to eat and the baby's got croup in its lung’). But it's to West's credit that she delivers it in exactly the right tone, treating it seriously without overtly dramatising it. That's not to say she doesn’t appreciate the humour in the music too: in ‘Once I Had an Old Grey Mare’ a horse gets drunk, finds religion and attends church, and West sings it straight with just the trace of a smile to her voice. The classic country of ‘I’ll Never Get Drunk Anymore’ has, of course, an inevitable last verse in which all good resolutions of sobriety fly out the window. This is touching, homespun music-making at its best.