Bonnie Dobson and The Hanging Stars: the Canadian folk singer renowned for her purity of voice and composer of the ever-fresh ’Morning Dew’; once at the heart of the Greenwich Village heyday when she sang at Gerdes Folk City with the likes of Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan, and the UK’s premier purveyors of Cosmic Americana riding a wave of creativity and acclaim, with two successive classic albums Hollow Heart and On A Golden Shore.
The spry octogenarian and the psychedelic cowboys - singer/guitarist Richard Olson, bassist Paul Milne, drummer Paulie Cobra, and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Ralla - proved a match ripe to be made. Since Bonnie’s reemergence, at Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown, she’d been interacting with a host of London musicians, but when the Stars came onto her horizon she sensed she’d found the perfect accompanists for her new compositions.
With no concrete plan they worked up a few songs, then went into Sean Read’s Famous Times to see what might happen. What happened is Dreams; a complete album comprising eight songs, of which six are recent compositions never before studio-recorded.
‘Baby’s Got The Blues’ confirms that voice is still there, undiminished, and just why she was instinctively drawn to this band. Self-evidently about the blues, though beyond, as with ‘Don’t Look Down,’ you sense hints of irredeemable loss, but then immediately ‘Trouble’ celebrates an enduring zest for life in its headlong scamper towards disruption. Meticulously arranged, loaded soundtracked dramas play out in ‘On A Morning Like This’ and ‘You Don’t Know’ while ‘Dreams’ gives the lie to ‘Morning Dew’’s finality, opening up a future that former song closed down.
An older favourite ‘Stay With Me Tonight’, and a revisit to Dino Valenti’s 60s anthem ‘Get Together’ reach into and celebrate her back catalogue, along with the era that initially defined her, and as one of its now few active representatives – it’s her and Dylan and not many more – she stands for.
DREAMS (2025)
"Bonnie Dobson nails it..impressive"
★★★★
MOJO
"folk legend and cosmic cowboys hit it off"
8/10
Uncut
"proves that some dreams do come true"
Album Of The Month
Shindig!
"it’s delightful"
★★★★
Album Of The Week
The Sunday Times
“the union works spectacularly well”
Lonesome Highway