Here's what's in fRoots No. 307/308, January/February 2009

fROOTS 32

Your latest exclusively compiled free CD - 15 tracks of listening pleasure from some of our favourite recent and forthcoming releases.

THE EDITOR’S BOX

Ian Anderson’s comment column.

fROOTS PLAYLIST

Recent stuff we like.

CHARTS & LISTS

Specialist and general roots music album sales and airplay charts.

REVIEWS

Our key section reviewing all the latest CDs and more - loads bite the dust. No punches pulled!

ROOTING ABOUT

What’s happening: packed pages of festivals, gigs, tours, radio, CDs and all kinds of roots-related stuff. The most you’ll find anywhere…

COMPETITION

Win our 100 Playlist CDs of 2008!

ROOT SALAD

A cross-section of featurettes: Niger's Malam Mamane Barka, Sami singer Ulla Pirttijärvi; Norwegian iceman Terje Isungset; Quebec's Genticorum, folkcore headbangers GloryStrokes, and Hungarian cimbalom virtuoso Kálmán Balogh in our Rocket Launcher questionnaire.

ALBUMS OF 2008

The 22nd Annual fRoots Critics Poll is the definitive look at the best albums of the year in world folk & roots musics.

AMERICAN ROOTS

In Bush’s USA, just like in Thatcher’s UK, roots music began a renaissance in spite of the regime. While the world waits for Obama’s inauguration, Ian Anderson introduces our ten reasons to celebrate American roots music, with artist profiles by Elizabeth Kinder.

FOLK AWARDS 2008

Our annual round-up of the nominees in BBC Radio 2’s prestigious gongfest. Colin Irwin surveys the field.

PASSING GOLD

In the last of our series marking the 50th anniversary of Guinea’s independence, Katharina Lobeck Kane met some of the veterans of the golden era of Guinean music – Keletigui Traoré, who sadly passed away recently, and Balla Onivogui.

GABI GABI HEY!

Inspired by the Sounds From A Bygone Age series of CD reissues, Garth Cartwright heads to Bucharest in search of legendary lautari singer Gabi Lunca, now 70.

FOR IT IS SHEE

A girl band, but not a girly band, they say. Chumbawamba may claim that the boy bands have won, but the Shee are living proof that they just might be wrong. Emily Portman meets them in Gateshead – where else?

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

They give prestigious awards to people for a fraction of what Reg Hall has done. Vic Smith profiles a man without whom the course of traditional music in England would be very different.

O2 BE IN NEW ORLEANS

Some of the very cream of Louisiana music came to London recently for a two day free event at the O2 dome that packed audiences in. Dave Peabody took his camera and notepad.

BIFF!

Our exclusive cartoon celebrates a new dawn in the USA.

CELEBRITY CORNER

Victor Meldrew reviews Honest Jon's Sprigs Of Time compilation, as told to Gordon Neill. Maybe.