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The Yelverton folk wonder has been blown away by many things this year. Why, look…

“I was completely blown away by Cherryholmes at the Cambridge Folk Festival. You know, this family band doing bluegrass and all sorts and every one of them singing so well. I thought I’d discovered them. I ran back to the guys and said we must get them on tour supporting us! It wasn’t until afterwards that I found out they were already huge in the States and had won about four Grammies, so it would have been more a question of us supporting them! My other best gigs were Steve Earle at Leicester, the Kaiser Chiefs in Prague and Oysterband in the Big Top at Beautiful Days festival in Devon. I’ve seen them loads of times before but this was just one of those occasions when everything worked right. I love their latest album Meet You There anyway and that gig was very special.

My favourite record of the year is probably Levon Helm’s Dirt Farmer. What a record! I love the sound of it – you can tell it’s set around a live atmosphere and, being a drummer, there’s such a great emphasis on rhythm, which appeals to me. It’s a wicked record. I also love Benji Kirkpatrick’s record Boomerang. He’s a fantastic songwriter and that record should have better than it did do, but he’s always busy working with Bellowhead and Faustus and Maddy Prior so he doesn’t get a lot of time to do solo stuff.”

Check out this month’s MOJO for more Best Things from Billy Connolly, U2 Oasis and more.