Here’s what’s in fRoots No. 299, May 2008

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…

ROOT SALAD

A cross-section of featurettes: the Daughters Of Albion project, festival favourites 3 Daft Monkeys, fado singer Maria De Fatima, Afro/Latin keyboard mainstay Sara McGuinness, Cameroon’s Muntu Valdo, Sheffield’s Crucible, America’s veteran Peggy Seeger in the Rocket Launcher questionnaire.

OLD TIME ROOTS REVIVAL

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are reclaiming the black roots of old time music, with a fresh 21st century spin. Elizabeth Kinder uses the old tea and crumpets ploy to get them talking.

LISBON CULTURE

Not everything from Portugal is fado. Jamie Renton finds a whole lot more in Terrakota: it fits like butter.

JOHNSON SPEEDWAX

You’d have thought that all the possible fat had been chewed about Robert Johnson by now. But no, there’s more weirdness afoot. Paul Vernon has the theories…

SCOTSWORLDNESS

If you’d somehow got the idea that London was the centre for cross-pollinating musicians with a global bent, then readjust your wig. Jan Fairley profiles a couple of Scotland’s crazy mixed up multicultural outfits, Orkestra Del Sol and La Boum!

DALMATIAN DAYS

A Serbian village in the south of Croatia is using traditional music to repair its shattered identity. Andrew Cronshaw went there to record the Zegar Zivi album. And goats.

YOUNG BAILEY

He’s been at it for fifty years and is still going strong. Chris Nickson reprises the Roy Bailey story.

BIFF!

Our exclusive cartoon gets into banjo history.

CELEBRITY CORNER

Sir Alex Ferguson reviews Mariza versus the Audience, in Concerto Em Lisboa, as told to Gordon Neill. Maybe.