It’s been a great month for B-K acts with The Wilders enjoying sell-out shows - and ecstatic reaction wherever they went. Top Herald writer Rob Adams made the band his Critic’s Choice recommendation and reporting that they were “leaving a trail of breathless admirers all over Scotland”.

Meanwhile, Mojo magazine carried a nice review of Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three’s Riverboat Soul album, saying it had “impeccable period atmosphere” while Raina Rose’s recent release, When May Came, picked up another recommendation from Maverick magazine for its “classic live-cut sound recorded with passion and vision”.

The Wilders have a brand new album due to release at the start of 2011 and UK audiences have been among the first to get a preview of the latest hot material.

Reviewing The Fox Hunt’s recent gig at The Tolbooth in Stirling, Rob Adams told readers of The Herald that the band had “energy to burn and appealingly rakish personalities”, and saying the outcome was “much fun and authentic Virginiana”.

Rob was particularly complimentary about Ben Townsend’s old-time fiddling and banjo style, saying he “has the sound of someone who has really gone deeply into his home state’s traditions”

Meanwhile, Karine Polwart, sitting in for Iain Anderson on his BBC Radio Scotland show, played a track from the band's new album, plugged the forthcoming dates and urged listeners to get out and see them while they are here.

When the July issue of fRoots magazine hit the streets it brought the news that Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three's Riverboat Soul album had entered the Red Lick Blues and R&B Top Ten at Number 5, proving that it's not just in America that the release has been causing a stir.

The same edition also has a feature on The Wiyos by writer Dave Peabody who says: "The Wiyos aren't weird, they're just wired...into a whole potpourri of early American idioms that they interpret with great verve and élan, mixing in a healthy dose of their original material which comes across as kith and kin to all the blues, jug band, vaudeville and western swing they choose to perform".

Dave saw the band when they played in London earlier this year, enjoyed the encounter and interviewed Parrish Ellis to get the lowdown on what makes them tick so well.

Gurf Morlix has just been confirmed as one of the top names taking part in this year’s Glasgow Americana festival.

Gurf joins a killer line-up that includes Tift Merritt, Eilen Jewell, Girlyman, Kevin Welch and many others.

The event is all put together by one man – Kevin Morris – whose Fallen Angels Club has been responsible for bringing a vast array of great music to the city in recent years.

Gurf’s Glasgow gig will be the opening show of his forthcoming UK tour in October.

Full programme details at the www.glasgowamericana.com website.

Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers, whose eponymous debut album soared to the Number 1 slot on the influential Freeform American Roots chart, will appear alongside Bob Dylan, Neko Case, Justin Townes Earle, The Decemberists, Trampled By Turtles and a star-studded host of other names to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the huge Bumbershoot Music festival in their home town, Seattle, in September.

The band has just been added to the bill for the four-day jamboree (Sept 4 to 6) that takes place on the 47-acre Seattle Centre site.

“Bumbershoot has a strong history of showcasing emerging talent alongside veteran superstars. This year for our 40th Festival, we’re excited to have artists that span more than four decades of phenomenal music,” said programme director Chris Porter.

“With this roster of talent, we’re truly offering a music line-up that will engage and entertain people of all ages and interests.”

Meanwhile, plans are in the pipeline to bring the band over to the UK for the first time early next year after the album was well received here too.

The Wilders just flew back to play a string of Stateside festivals after a triumphant tour of Ireland with some venues reporting they could have done two shows. It's great when the sold-out signs go up but always disappointing to hear that some people were turned away. Some fans bought tickets for more than one show and made a real meal of it. Our good friends at Moving On Music in Belfast, described the last show there as "phenomenal" and reviewing the gig for Culture Northern Ireland, Andrew Johnston confirmed what everyone else had been saying:

"No one wants The Wilders to go, but after a barnstorming rip through 'Ring of Fire', they wind down the evening with the Golden Gate Quartet gospel tune 'My Time's Done Come'. One by one, the band members ditch their instruments and wander crooning and clapping through the crowd to the dressing room. It sounds quirky, but it is simply more proof of their talent - an inspiring end to an incredible night."

The band finished off this latest visit to the UK with a storming performance at the prestigious Bath International Festival and a by-popular-demand return to keep the good folks of Buckingham happy. Next, it's Scotland's turn and they'll be back before you know it for close on three weeks of dates (including a headline slot at Speyfest) in July/August.

Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three's popularity continues to grow and the band will now arrive back in the UK two days earlier than was previously planned, to play the coolest festival of them all - The Big Chill - at Ledbury, on August 5.

Fans of Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three and Woody Pines will be happy to know that both bands are riding high in the current Americana UK Top Ten Chart just published by Maverick magazine which has Riverboat Soul at the Number 8 slot and Counting Alligators sitting at Number 6.

Reviewing Riverboat Soul by Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three in the same publication, Jeremy Searle says: "There are a lot of bands heading down the lively old-timey musical route right now but LaFarge and his men raise themselves to the first rank by virtue of their winning combination of joie de vivre, chops, humour, irresistible danceability and sheer fun."

The album gets another great review from David Innes in Rock 'n' Reel (R2) magazine where he says the band is "a combo of quite spectacular talent" and concludes: "They were a revelation at the 2010 Celtic Connections festival and will be touring the UK in late summer for what promise to be house-wrecking 'live' shows. Don't miss them."

Willie Nelson once described Billy Joe Shaver as a legend, saying that he “may be the best songwriter alive today”.

…Well Billy Joe Shaver is recognised as a straight shooter too and when he appeared at the Nelsonville Folk and Blues Festival in Ohio on May 15, taking the stage straight after Woody Pines had turned on the big crowd, the Texan ‘outlaw country’ star pinned his colours to the mast and declared:

“They’re the best damn band I’ve ever heard!”

What did Woody and the boys think of that?

“It made our day,” they said, somewhat understandably.

The Wilders have been wowing the crowds in Wales during their biggest ever tour there.

They all but blew the roof off the beautiful Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea where a near-capacity attendance felt the full force of the band in stunning form.

Reviewing the show for the local newspaper, Graham Williams said he had found the band’s performance exhilarating last time they hit the venue and added:

“I went along to this one knowing that I was in for a treat - but if anything they were even better this time around and attracted a huge crowd.”

He added: “From the moment the band strode onto the stage they had the audience in the palms of their hands with their electrifying brand of country music. The advance publicity described them as a 'white-hot hillbilly hurricane' and that seemed about right to me as they filled the auditorium with some of the most amazing sounds to have been heard at this venue for quite a while.

“This was another triumph for Taliesin in terms of its booking policy.”

New releases from two Brookfield-Knights acts fall under the spotlight in the latest issue of Acoustic magazine and win praise from the publication’s critics, with Julian Piper describing Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three’s Riverboat Soul as “another gloriously rowdy workout” and Gareth L. Powell hooked on Raina Rose’s “agreeable blend of singer-songwriter acoustic indie-pop” while reviwing her album, When May Came.

The Wiyos won an army of new fans after making several appearances at various different venues during the recent Shetland Folk Festival and, according to reports in The Shetland Times, were widely regarded as being among the most popular acts who took part.

Reviewing two of their shows, Mark Burgess said they “out-performed any expectations” to win rapturous applause and justified encores, and added: “They certainly ranked among the best acts of the festival”.

Louise Thomason was sorry that the band’s set was over “all too quickly” and again was complimentary about the performance rating them as “a definite festival highlight”.

The Wiyos flew back to the USA after a whirlwind visit to Shetland Folk Festival where they were flown in as late additions to the bill and announced by the event's artistic director, Davie Henderson as "the icing on the cake".

BBC radio and TV world music presenter Mary Ann Kennedy caught one of the band’s superb shows and was heard later saying she thought they had served up a "delicious" performance. Meanwhile, music writer Sue Wilson was another convert telling readers of The Scotsman she enjoyed their "slick, rakish mix of retro Americana styles".

Due to the level of demand, the band has just confirmed they will be returning to the UK for a four-week tour that will take in dates in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in March and April next year. Still just one or two dates to fill.

Reviewer Rob Adams gave Woody Pines a 4/5-star rating in The Herald after seeing the band perform at The Tolbooth in Stirling, saying it was easy to see why reports from some of the earlier dates noted that audiences had been dancing on the tables.

"Such abandon never seemed likely here but it was still possible to imagine how, given the right circumstances and maybe a few more glugs of moonshine, Pines and his chums’ energetic roots ’n’ boogie might provoke that response," he said.

Praising the performance, Rob continued: "He name-checks blues and country pioneers such as Big Bill Broonzy and Doc Boggs with both reverence and familiarity, as if they might still be with us – and through Pines’s prematurely careworn delivery and locomotive rhythms, these long gone heroes’ songs seem genuinely part of a living tradition.

"...when they moved into vintage jazz, ragtime and Louisiana-style blues, and especially when Pines produced an amiable take on Satisfied and Tickled Too, they showed a musicality that was easily as memorable as their more rambunctious exploits".

More good news reached us this month when the latest Freeform American Roots Chart was published, showing Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three's Riverboat Soul at the No 5 position, alongside Johnny Cash.

The hugely influential FAR Chart is compiled from reports sent in by DJs with freeform (no playlists) radio shows on public, college and community stations round the USA (and rest of the world). Each of them sends in monthly returns listing the six albums they liked best, and nominating one as their Album of the Month.

And, as if that wasn't enough to cheer us, when the equally-important Roots Music Report announced its Top Fifty blues CDs for the month, the album was sitting pretty at the No 9 slot as Pokey and his proud sidekicks rubbed shoulders with Seasick Steve and Eric Bibb, as they all challenged for Top Ten positions.

You can feel the temperature rising. It always happens just before a hurricane hits. ...And with The Wilders all set to arrive for their first visit of 2010, things are hotting up alright. The band kick off their latest UK tour with dates in Wales early next month. To set the scene, BBC Radio Wales' top man, Frank Hennessy, played two tracks from their Thrown Down album at the weekend and told his listeners to prepare for a visit by "a mighty band". "Brilliant", he said, confirming he knows his stuff.

We are delighted to announce that we will be representing one of the hottest bands in American roots music at present - Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers - in the UK and Ireland.

The Seattle-based band has just stormed the Freeform American Roots Chart with their debut album which has soared to the Number 1 slot.

The hugely-influential FAR Chart is compiled from returns submitted by DJs with freeform (no playlists) radio shows on public, college and community stations across the USA and rest of the world. Each of them lists the six albums they liked best, and nominates one as their Album of the Month. The majority voted for Zoe.

If you are unfamiliar with the band (that's not going to be the case for much longer) have a listen at their Myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/zoemuth ...and, pay particular attention to the tracks. I've Been Gone and Hey, Little Darlin, both recently recorded 'live' in session for their local radio station KEXP - and Wastin' My Time, from the album.

The band will tour the UK for the first time in July next before heading for an extensive string of European dates. The album is currently at the number 4 slot on the Euro Americana Chart as well.

The album gets a major UK launch next month with promo CDs being circulated on a widespread basis for review and radio plays.

Pokey Lafarge & The South City Three continue to make an impact on both sides of the Atlantic with their brand new release, Riverboat Soul. The album is sitting at the Number 5 position on the hugely-influential FAR Chart in USA, while the Americana UK Chart just published in Maverick magazine shows it has entered that monthly listing at the No 10 slot.