What a Pretty Day –  Ranzel X Kendrick (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Roots music is a tricky term, two wide ranging to bolt anything down too specifically, able to accommodate genres such as country, folk, blues and all sorts of world music, but if there is one artist whose music seems to sit nicely under its journalistic umbrella it is the wonderfully named Ranzel X Kendrick. His self-termed Freestyle folk needs no other qualification or label, it not only does what it says on the tin, a scattergun of rambling folk and country licks, it seems to swerve the rigidity of the former and the cliche of the latter and find its own down-to-earth, sweet and accessible path.

Here joined by vocalist Rebecca White, What A Pretty Day is from the forthcoming Texas Sagebrush, the middle of a trilogy of albums which began with Texas Paintbrush and is set to conclude with Texas Cactus. The real charm of the song is that it has a free-wheelin’ jam session feel to it, is loose and laid back, not in its studio presentation, that is as on the button as it needs to be, it is just that the understatement and relaxed personality of the song makes it seem like you have a couple of friends over busking for fun in the back yard, all of which is a nice antidote to the over slick, overtly earnest and ultimately false feeling of much modern music.