Los Texmaniacs: Texas Towns & Tex-Mex Sounds

Available from Smithsonian Folkways, sample track 'Ana Mia'

Los Gauchos de Roldán: Button Accordion and Bandoneón Music from Northern Uruguay

Just released on Smithsonian Folkways. Sample track: “Como mi suegra - milonga”

Etta James

A range of excellent tributes to Etta James, particularly Richard Williams' Etta James: 10 classic performances.

When she turned it up, as on 'Something's Got a Hold On Me,' she was always convincing, but I preferred it when she held back just a little. The reserves of power in a performance like 'I'd Rather Go Blind' only deepened its emotional impact.

See also Etta James obituary from The Guardian; Etta James Dies at 73 from New York Times.

Richard Thompson OBE

The national press comments on the award of an OBE to Richard Thompson have generally been dismal, with endless references to Fairport Convention which he actually left in 1971. That's 38 years of recordings ( since Henry the Human Fly came out in 1972) left unmentioned, and little sense of his achievements in the wider context of British music. The Guardian, which ought to have known better, described Thompson as a guitarist and songwriter 'once of Fairport Convention but also a writer of lyrics for Robert Plant and Elvis Costello.' That's about as wrong-headed as it could be.

Still, whatever one thinks about the merits of the Honours system, ( and Thompson's own web-site, Beesweb, suggests he is proud of his award ) it is at least entertaining to think of the processes by which his OBE was confirmed. Key responsibility lay with an Arts and Media sub-committee which uses its 'specialist' knowledge to identify candidates, who are then submitted to an overall selection committee, which in turns makes recommendations to the Prime Minister, who then sends the final list to the Queen. Current members of the Arts and Media group include:

Independent Chairman: Lord Stevenson of Coddenham CBE

Non-civil service members: Dame Jenny Abramsky DBE, Former director, radio and music, BBC; John Gross, author and former theatre critic of The Sunday Telegraph; Ben Okri OBE, novelist and poet; Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of The Times Literary Supplement

Permanent Secretary (Department for Culture, Media and Sport): Jonathan Stephens

Permanent Secretary (Scottish Executive): Sir Peter Housden KCB

Any closet Thompson fans there? Stevenson was the former chair of HBOS, who was forced to resign after the company's virtual collapse, and subsequently apologised to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee for his role in the affair, which led to a government bail out to the banks of £37b. His 'remorse' echoes Thompson's penitent banker in The Money Shuffle' from Dream Attic (2010):

I love kittens and little babies, Can't you see that's the guy I am, And your money is so safe with me, You've never met such an honest man.

Or perhaps DC himself listens to Thompson alongside the Smiths? Maybe Richard, like Marr and Morrissey, should have forbidden Dave from liking his music.

England Kilomathon 14 March

Daft name, exaggerated rhetoric, and exorbitant entry fee, but difficult to avoid the challenge if you live in Derby, so here goes...

Schama on Obama's Foreign Policy

Simon Schama's programme, Obama's America: the Price of Freedom, broadcast on the BBC on 12/1/2010, makes the argument that President Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War provides salient lessons for President Obama in Afghanistan. Truman settled for a policy, he suggests, that was 'compromised, messy, local, and realistic.' Containment, supported by the military cost of an American army of over 30,000 men as late as 2009, provided the opportunity for South Korea to experience both prosperity and freedom. The Vietnam war, by contrast, was prompted by John F. Kennedy's promise that the United States would 'pay any price,bear any burden... to assure the survival and the success of liberty.' The result was military failure and the loss of 58,000 American and several million Vietnamese lives. The danger in Afghanistan, Schama seemed to suggest, was to believe that it might be possible to completely crush the Taliban, just as General Douglas MacArthur had believed that he could destroy the Communists in Korea. Obama's statement that American troops might return home as early as July 2011, following a victory created by the steady increase in troops through 2009 and 2010, seems unduly optimistic, when seen from the perspective of the long-term American military presence in Korea. On the other hand, whether containment can be as effective in the very different conditions of the contemporary Middle East as it was in post-World War II Europe or Korea is open to question. A continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan might soon come to seem like an army of occupation.

Irisgate: 'where is god in all of this?'

The continuing exposures of the Robinsons, including the Panorama special on Monday 11 January, prompt a range of reactions. First, religious commitment and claims to biblical purity are not always opposed to personal aggrandisement, ostentatious display or personal insensitivity. There's always something particularly satisfying when a passionate denouncer ( ( particularly from the fundamentalist corner ) of the other people's sins bites the dust. At the same time Peter Robinson's performance at Stormont while his wife was recovering from a failed suicide attempt was notably cool and self-controlled, and suggested someone trying very hard to keep the lid firmly shut. But there was also the unedifying spectacle of lines of sanctimonious men queuing up to denounce yet another 'mad' woman, and the curious spectacle of Dr. Selwyn Black, Iris's political adviser since January 2008, with his storehouse of saved messages and emails. And where in June 2008, was either God or Dr. Black, when Iris denounced homosexuality as an 'abomination'?