Goodbye Jumbo (1990) is an album that doesn’t make Dave’s list of records to take with him, largely because it wasn’t released at the point where he was making his selection. He comes across it during the course of the book though, and one song in particular proves to have a decisi...

I was recently invited to provide a guest post on the Write Path substack, which is run by a writers’ group, Author Events, that I am part of. The brief was to tell people about my writing journey, including successes and encouragement along the way. Here’s what I wrote for them:

Even as...

I’ve written before, briefly, about Townes Van Zandt and his connection to Dead Man Singing, and even if it wasn’t for the thematic tie-in of this album’s title, I think it would have been one that Dave would have chosen for his getaway selection of 100 albums. 

Townes Van Zan...

Seeing live music has been a huge part of my life for over 40 years now, and it’s something that still thrills me. Earlier today I managed to secure tickets to see Richard Thompson (I’ve seen him before of course, many times), one of four gigs I’m already looking forward to in 2026...