I first came across the name Margo Cilker five years ago when she released a debut album with the mysterious and unpronounceable title Pohorylle.

The music was rooted in old-time storytelling country music – the genre sometimes called “cowboy country” – but with a contemporary twist, built around motifs of family and nature.

Her songs have earned her comparisons to Lucinda Williams, which is high praise indeed, or perhaps just lazy journalism, because I don’t hear that at all. 

I must admit that after my initial discovery I seem to have rather forgotten about her, until I was reminded by my daughter’s best friend Zoe, and discovered this excellent new tune.

Cilker is a California girl who has moved up north, first to Oregon and thence to Washington with her husband, to live and work on their ranch. Her music, meanwhile, has moved south in its influences.

I now need to acquaint myself with her second album, Valley Of Heart’s Delight, while waiting for her next one to arrive. In the meantime, here’s a catchy li’l taster.

Dr Hook and the Medicine Show paid tribute to the witch queen of New Orleans on a song by Shel Silverstein on their debut album.

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Ella Fitzgerald popularised Irving Berlin’s song Get Thee Behind Me Satan nearly 25 years after it first appeared in a Hollywood movie.

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Immersion is an experimental electronic and sound-art duo comprised of Colin Newman from Wire and his wife Malka Spigel.

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Bill Janowitz continues his solo music career with a new EP following his early days as the lead singer and guitarist in Buffalo Tom.

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October 1976: I’ve bunked off college early and I’m at the Victoria Palace Theatre to see Graham Parker & The Rumour. But what excites me more is the support band – The Damned.

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I’m so sad to hear about the death of Kevin Campbell, a title-winning mainstay of Arsenal’s attack in the late Eighties and early Nineties – and a hero on Merseyside after he moved to Everton.

When I first heard Domino on The Cramps’ landmark debut Gravest Hits EP, prompting the birth of psychobilly in 1979, I had no idea it was a Roy Orbison song.

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Is there a genre called jazz-dub? If there isn’t – or wasn’t – then I think it’s been invented on this tune. I can’t stop playing it.

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How different rock history might have been if Leaf Hound had formed a couple of years earlier. They might well have stolen Led Zeppelin’s thunder and become rock legends.

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