The bard rests on his laurels, and swipes left and right

CDs, vinyl and downloads vied for attention almost every week during 2024. There was so much good music issued it was hard to keep up, but I’m not complaining!
On the rock front the Irish guitar hero Rory Gallagher’s double CD set culled from his 20-disc box set of BBC radio broadcasts The Best Of Rory Gallagher At The BBC (BBC Sessions) features Rory appearing on Radio One’s Sounds Of The ’70s and In Concert between 1973-1979. Easily the best hard core rock reissue album of 2024.
Fellow Irishman, Van Morrison released Live At Orangefield (Orangefield Records) compiled from three sold-out shows played in August 2014, to mark the closure of his old secondary school in Belfast — the venue of his first public performance at Christmas 1959, leading a skiffle group on Lead Belly’s Midnight Special.

TONY BURKE explains how an internationally significant breakthrough for workers’ organisation and recognition against two notoriously anti-union global mega corporations has been finally achieved in Canada

TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger

This is a remarkable set of hop hip, salsa, reggae, soul, cumbia and traditional Mexican music finds TONY BURKE

New releases from Madalitso Band, Gabriel da Rosa, and Femi Kuti