James Elkington - Ever-Roving Eye - VINYL LP

Chicago songwriter and guitarist James Elkington-who has collaborated with everyone from Richard Thompson to Jeff Tweedy to Tortoise-recorded his sophomore album at Wilco's Loft, expanding upon his celebrated 2017 debut Wintres Woma (PoB-034) as well as his recent production and arrangement work for the likes of Steve Gunn, Nap Eyes, and Joan Shelley. Casting glances back to British folk traditions as well as toward avant-garde horizons, these brilliant new songs, as accessible as they are arcane, buttress Elkington's brisk guitar figures and baritone poesy with strings, woodwinds, and backing vocals by Tamara Lindeman of the Weather Station.

Love Forever, our 2025 set of demos from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon, set collector hearts a-flutter all over the world with it's collection of introspective, folk rock-flavored tunes drawn from her unreleased recordings for Metric Music Publishing. Now, we're one-upping ourselves with Girl of Yesterday-Acoustic Folk Demos, a collection of COMPLETELY UNRELEASED acoustic folk demos from Jackie, taken from the same rich source of material. Folk music came naturally to Jackie. She got her start singing gospel at home and in church as a child in her native Kentucky, and then singing country songs in her teens on her own weekly radio show. And her first, self-titled album for Liberty in 1963 consisted entirely of folk repertoire. But that album only featured folk songs written by other artists. Girl of Yesterday-Acoustic Folk Demos, on the other hand, presents a dozen tunes, all penned by Jackie for an album distributed by Metric in 1964. Accompanied only by her own accomplished fingerpicked acoustic guitar, DeShannon delivered a stunning set of heart-rendingly sung, haunting music imbued with the doubt, confusion, and excitement of finding adult identity. Although grounded in acoustic folk, it looked forward to both folk-rock and the singer-songwriter era in it's lyrical maturity and melodic complexity. Only 500 to 1000 copies were pressed in November 1964, it's availability limited to various A&R personnel and other music industry staff who made decisions with recording artists looking for material. With Girl of Yesterday-Acoustic Folk Demos, this remarkable material finally gains the exposure it deserves. Among the highlights are a couple of songs that were soon covered by famous artists. Certainly the most renowned is InchDon't Doubt Yourself, Babe,Inch given a Bo Diddley beat by The Byrds (Jackie was a huge Byrds booster and fan) on their Top Ten

Me Neither is a 29 track double album of instrumental guitar music. While juggling a number of other projects James Elkington began writing Inchmusic for which there was no purpose.Inch It became a new way of working for him - waking up each morning and improvising and recording the first thing that came into his head. InchThe only rules I gave myself were that I should make most of the sounds with a guitar, changing the speed or processing the recordings afterwards to get the effect I was looking for.Inch Before long he had an albums worth of material. About mid-way through the second album Elkington had a liberating thought he was making his own version of library music Inchif you're writing library music, you don't have to know what it's for - that can be someone else's job.Inch