Causeway Recordings

Endowed with an endearingly streetwise Scottish brogue; sharply honed clawhammer banjo, guitar and harmonica chops; and a flair for equally celebrating the beautiful and quirky nature of both Americana and Scots-Irish-Anglo folk music, singer-songwriter Sam Shackleton is a refreshing new voice on the international acoustic scene. Entirely self-recorded in his flat in Causewayside, Edinburgh, Scotland, Shackleton’s debut album showcases the artist’s innately powerful and idiosyncratic style to its fullest extent.

With a yodelling lilt lifted from the Hank Williams school of vocal inflections, Shackleton whoops and hollers between bars to drive the rhythm while blowing harmonica and cranking out banjo breaks like an Appalachian banshee. He rolls through three traditional numbers (‘House Carpenter’, ‘Cuckoo Bird’, ‘Gambling Davey’) and ten originals with the assured abandon of a seasoned street busker. On some of the original material, such as ‘Summer Sailor’ and ‘Long Golden Chain’, the ear detects an overly self-conscious effort to bring southern American twang and drawl into the mix, but not to the point where it spoils the fun. Lots of musicians are thoroughly schooled in the old ways. Very few have Shackleton’s gift for extending traditional music into the 21st century with the same spirit and imagination possessed by its progenitors.