Album: Charlie Dore, The Hula Valley Songbook, (Black Ink)

The likeable English songwriter does what all English songwriters are obliged to do one day: an album of favourite American songs.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, Dore’s choices are sepia-toned: songs which are redolent of an old world rather than a new one. They go all the way back to Jimmie Rodgers and Al Bowlly, with one exception (Dore’s own rockabilly-lite “I’m Cleaning Out My House”), and they are tackled with delicacy and rue by Dore’s regular crew of acoustic swingers. Nice.