Walking around this place listening to @theuntangledknot.bsky.social song roughs has been one of the pleasures of this summer. It's amazing what can happen when creators pool resources 😎🔥🎤🎧💻

Just a couple of nights away. It's nice to be back playing a session for Sounds Good on Thursday. To join our 90 minutes of barely restrained mayhem, please email hello@rtminds.org.uk for an access code. RT minds take people out of desperation and into hope, so please consider supporting the cause.

The Compendium airs at 8pm (UK) Wednesdays on www.folkfridayradio.com @folkfridayradio.bsky.social and this week continues to fringe different sides of the folk spectrum. Artist links provided here as the songs play. Do join us.

Well Mick, you have a point but... www.johnreedmusic.com/this-is-not-... #PeaceLives

Heritage with www.duncanreedmusic.co.uk is done. Time to brainstorm promotional ideas. We’ve decided there will be a CD run and we have a few other ideas in the pot boiling away. For now, we’ll each listen to the album masters for a week or so, to be sure all is well before we commit to print. 😎🔥

Amazing to look back over four years to the first beginnings of the Heritage album. Works like this grow legs, and move in directions you least expect. So as we approach the last few production days with Ali Karim, the album’s begun to feel like a real thing. (yeah, I know they're all muted 🤣)

Compendium 271 - 8th July 2026 - Song 11 The Little Unsaid - Gun Goes Off Album: Dig for the Promise Date: 2013 Web: www.thelittleunsaid.com Blue Sky: #TheLittleUnsaid

The 271st Compendium is the first of four which include small - and sometimes not so small - plugs for the first ever Berwick Fringe here in #berwickupontweed 31 July - 1 August This week's show is on the progressive side of acoustic, and a bit more, so tune in 8pm (UK) Weds www.folkfridayradio.com

I spent some of last weekend in a remote production session with Ali Karim, moving 8 out of the 11 songs for “Heritage” to the final mix stage. There’s a little work to do on a few of them, but overall Duncan and I are absolutely delighted at the results. I guess we need to think about promotion 😎

“Heritage” will be released in due course, in the fullness of time, and other sayings as well 😎 The summer is a release graveyard, but then the reasons and excuses expire. There will be CDs as well as digital. Here's most of the participants being posh a few years ago at Duncan & Antonia's wedding.

In case you rely on Google AI summaries for accurate information, this is how inaccurate they can be, although, they more or less got there after four different searches, 30 minutes apart 🙄 www.johnreedmusic.com/what-exactly... I've changed my hairdo since 1917 🤣

4 weeks today, the first #BerwickFringe opens, with 13 venues giving a stage to 50+ artists, drawn from the local area. With 13,000 people, Berwick punches musically above its weight, with a huge pool of original songwriting and musicianship from which to draw. Get yourselves to #berwickupontweed!

Over the next couple of weekends Ali Karim will be adding his magical production touches to “Heritage”. He’s produced for both of us for a decade now, so we largely know what to expect…although he has new toys…so as usual, we expect the completely unexpected ... which is always welcome.

“Heritage” celebrates family and ancestry. With the addition of Euan, there are now 81 living family members, who’ve all benefited from our creative ancestors. For Jen & Phiz’s 40th in 2025, 9 of us and two dogs went to the Isle of Mull with instruments and cameras for a week, but mainly ourselves.

I love this piece of wood

Amazing how fast these things come around. I'm playing a set of guitar and cittern songs on Friday at #LongtonLive near Preston. Do come along to support this amazing two day festival if you're out and about 😎

We now have a target release date for "Heritage" (TBC). We’ve taken a relaxed approach to the album because there has been so much else going on within our families during its making. The photos show a chilled bunch (Duncan photo by Jay Massey) @mattsteady.bsky.social @jobethyoung.bsky.social

Hello to Euan, here doing a plausible impersonation of a limpet, and few minutes prior to taking a liking to the beard 🤣

“Heritage” uses some special Instruments: a lap steel lovingly crafted from a floor joist by Duncan, his sister Jenny and her partner David (Phiz) for my 60th; an ngoni loaned to me by my great friend Steve Stavrinou; and my workhorse Fylde Archtop cittern - instruments you can’t put a price on.

For my umpteenth birthday I want to encourage donations to a very fine cause, to restore Dick Gaughan's rights to his 60 year music catalogue. Here's a blog and links to The Eyes of Rutherglen and Leith and www.gofundme.com/f/aatux2 where all proceeds will go www.johnreedmusic.com/the-eyes-of-...

In just over a week, I'll be returning to Longton Live near Preston for the first time in 7 years to perform a set of songs from the last 10.

Two original songs on “Heritage" - one from each of us -commemorate the life and artistry of my Great Uncle Frank Reed (1897-1964), whose WW1 memoirs include original cartoons, postcards, prints, and contemporary poetry from his 4 years as a stretcher-bearer on the killing fields of Northern Europe.

This week, the Compendium happens to fall on my birthday, so I've packed it full of songs and tunes from artists across continents whose music I happen to like a lot. Tune in and join me on Wednesday 8pm (UK) www.folkfridayradio.com Artist links posted simultaneously right here. Fascist Free Zone

“Heritage” was recorded between Duncan’s garden studio in Dunfermline, and my Berevic home studio here in Berwick. The album is currently being fettled at Ali Karim’s studio somewhere in a village with two counties, for him to add his amazingly intuitive production skills. One album. Three studios.

For the knee-jerkers, song-skippers, sound-biters, headline-believers and associated knobheads out there. Get a grip. Get a life.

“Heritage” is an album focused on family, but mainly comprises our interpretations of traditional songs we’ve known for 40 years. There are two original songs in the mix, and two which we obtained permission to cover. Some songs are not as ‘traditional’ as you may think.

The first rough recordings for “Heritage” were put together before Duncan and Antonia married at Niedpath Castle, Peebles in October 2022. ‘Live’ photos were taken there by Jamie Massey during that weekend, and have been used for the album cover design. "Heritage" is in its production stage.

Spaniels are strict disciplinarians when it comes to album release timetables.

John found himself on his knees after he and Duncan finally completed their Heritage album, now away with Ali Karim for mastering and production. I believe Jamie Massie snook this photo 😎

There's a slightly more bluesy Compendium this week. Slightly Tune in at 8pm (UK) on @folkfridayradio.bsky.social www.folkfridayradio.com but don't forget, from 6:30pm Stuart Green hosts his 300th @thefolkclub.bsky.social and after me it's Rick Stuart with his umpteenth Roots and Fusion until 11!