If you like it on the folky / rootsy / acoustic side....

Bob-Dubery

Series 4 of Transatlantic Sessions was filmed early this year in Scotland, recently aired on Scottish and Irish TV and is now available on DVD.

It follows the formula adopted for previous series, yet it's not formulaic. The cleverness is that the formula involves musicians working outside of their comfort zones, and also that the musical directors (Scottish fiddler Aly Bain and Nashville dobro star Jerry Douglas) allow for some wild cards in their choice of musicians.

So we get Martha Wainwright bringing elements of chanson into the mix, and Danny Thompson and Stuart Duncan introducing a distinctly jazzy improvisational attitude. Liam Ó Maonlaí (of Hothouse Flowers) works up a soul version of Oscar Brown’s “Work Song” and supposedly folk singers like Julie Fowlis and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh rise to the occasion with great backing vocals over Danny Thompson’s whooping, thumping bass lines. Karan Casey renders a jazzy version of the Irish folk song “Black Is The Colour” and the instrumentalists, including her husband and concertina player Niall Vallely, take their instruments into interesting solo spaces.

Elsewhere there’s the broad spread of American and Celtic roots styles that the show is famous for, but with the guest artists, who include James Taylor, Dan Tyminksi and Roseanne Cash, adding their own unique musical colours to the palette.

Guitar wise there are Russ Barenberg and Jerry Douglas in the “house band” and also taking a leading role at times. James Taylor provides some elegant finger picking (on a drop-dead gorgeous Olson OM) for his own pieces.

2 discs. 6 ½ hour episodes plus 4 bonus tracks and a behind the scenes documentary.

Not in the local shops or even on-line stores as far as I can tell. I got my copy from Amazon UK.

Squonk

sounds like compulsory watching and listening.
I will definitely look out for this series.
James Taylor, another name that's not mentioned enough, yet I am sure he inspired many acoustic players worldwide
Thanks Bob ?

Bob-Dubery

There's been 4 series on TV, at irregular intervals with the first airing in 1995.

Series 1, 3 and now 4 are available on DVD. There are some complicated copyright issues with series 2, but the company that puts the discs out is trying to resolve those. I have all the others on DVD. Image and sound quality on 1 is not great, but there's some fab music on it.

I really hope they sort out series 2. There's some great turns there by John Martyn, Eddi Reader, Paul Brady and cajun fiddler Michael Doucet.

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: James Taylor, another name that's not mentioned enough, yet I am sure he inspired many acoustic players worldwide

I managed to get to this point in my life without paying much attention to James Taylor. I was quite struck by his playing on these DVDs though. He's not a GREAT player, but he is distinctive and quite clever.