CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a new book that makes working class history come alive in a true story of human flesh and aspiration
Best albums of 2024 with Tony Burke
A horn of plenty, no less!
Rory Gallagher in 1973
[Heinrich Klaffs/CC] 
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a contemporary update of a problem play that raises more questions than it answers
New releases from Alice Di Micele, Tim Grimm, and Tereza Catarov
MARY CONWAY is frustrated by the stylistic muddle that arises when you apply a pub theatre sensibility to a towering Greek tragedy
ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher
ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it
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.
More from this author
The move against alleged PKK members that sparked outrage as a community centre in north London was raided last year has now come to trial, writes TONY BURKE, but in the meantime, the peace process abroad has changed the situation almost entirely
TONY BURKE reviews new releases from Cheikh Lo, Mishra & Deepa Shakthi, N’Faly Kouyate
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
