Quietly, almost surreptitiously, Rita Hosking, like the teacher she is, has over the years gently led her listeners into her world of softly stated folk music, an amalgam of sunny California and steelier mountain climes. She’s a story teller with a guitar who has always embellished her songs with banjo and Dobro, keeping it simple but direct. Her last release,  Little Boat was a miniature delight, 27 minutes of unalloyed joy as Hosking sang of small town life and a child’s wonder of science.

Frankie and The No-Go Road follows the template of the earlier albums, produced again by Rich Brotherton (of Robert Earl Keen fame) who plays a plethora of stringed instruments and keyboards here while husband Sean Feder adds Dobro and Djembe. The twist is that it’s a bit of a concept album, or at least a set of songs with a thematic connection, the connection being the concern about the untrammelled drive of commerce and its abuse of the individual’s aspirations along with its effects on society and ecology. There’s no storyline as such but Hosking adroitly weaves her theme around the concept of Wetiko, a Native American word for those who consume all around with no thought for the future. She directly addresses this in the song Wetiko singing “Take it all, take it now, take it any way you can. And you will be a royal in this guns’n’dolls land” but overall the message is oblique. The “hero,” Frankie is on an odyssey set off by his search for a better world as he observes wanton commercialism. He considers a flight from it all but instead decides to teach folk how to achieve a better world. He battles the villain and returns only to find that messiahs are not always welcomed, unabashed he continues to deliver his wisdom. In a nutshell this is it but the above is gleaned from Hosking’s written intros on the lyric booklet as the songs exist both within and without the story. You can enjoy the album as you wish, a set of very fine songs or as a message.

As a set of songs the album maintains Hosking’s place as one of our finer artists. She sings with a fine sense of ache and the songs are all excellent rootsy excavations. Mixing a folky sound with a more primitive and bare boned banjo blues style she delivers a set of songs that each deserve attention. Our Land is a song that is shiveringly good while Mama Said is a pure joy. The band are excellent on the gently rolling Black Hole and there’s a wonderful sense of defiance on Resurrection.

Rita Hosking is touring the UK in November, dates here.

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Some years ago we heard Rita Hosking’s Come Sunrise and were pretty much blown away by it. Its simplicity, the tales of hard life and Hosking’s vocal delivery were all well above par and invited comparisons to Gillian Welch and Rachel Harrington. So it’s very nice to report that her latest offering Little Boat maintains and even improves on the quality shown on the earlier release.
It’s a simple affair with little or no frills. Hosking plays acoustic guitar while her husband Sean Feder adds Dobro and banjo and producer Rick Brotherton supplies guitars, bass and hammer dulcimer. Making it something of a family affair Hosking and Feder’s daughter Kora Feder co writes one song and plays some banjo while Kathy Brotherton is called upon to add some accordion. The end result is a beautifully played set of songs that have a refreshing back porch feel, unhurried, relaxed, picking away at the end of the day to while away any worries. Hosking’s voice is wonderful, faintly reticent of Natalie Merchant’s, it’s warm and delivered effortlessly and the music suits the vocals perfectly. Topping it all Hosking has a poet’s way with words. She hymns the wonders of the Sierra’s singing
I’ve been around the world, to the countries of the East/ The halls of science have felt the soles of my feet/ And I got my start in the sweet Sierra range/ Where a grove of trees and the mountains call my name/ And I’d climb up in that old pine tree, with the sap on my elbow and a scrape on my knee/
And I’d read about the places I’d see when I climb down, but in my heart I’m always Sierra bound.

The opening song Parting Glass could be the deathbed thoughts of someone not raging against the dying of the light but accepting the inevitable while Nothing Left of Me is a bitter recrimination against a lover who has had his pleasure and moved on. Clean is a slyly humorous song that collects the thoughts of a student forced to clean for folk to pay for her education while Five Star Location, the one song here where the music shifts a gear up is a snapshot of a North Carolina community whose jobs have been shipped to China. The crowning glory however is the co write with Kora Feder, Where Time Is Reigning. Together they capture a wonderful and intimate childlike explanation of the wonders and mysteries of nature and science.

What did dinosaurs think? Says the kid in the dinosaur mask/And in her tar pit dreams, she pulls out a bottle of glass/And inside is a note, it’s a riddle of the treasure hunt type/And as she grows old, every year the peaches will get ripe/It’s the kingdom of the first and second hand/It’s an infinite and most enchanting land/Where rocks fly, old cars try, where everything dies but time.

With only seven songs and running in at around 27 minutes it’s over almost before it begins but it’s an album that grows in stature listen after listen and as we said before perfect to listen to at the end of the day to lighten the load.

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