Blair Dunlop Travels New Folk Routes
Blair Dunlop’s accomplished third album Gilded, released today (6), sees the English singer-songwriter and actor expanding ever further on his folk roots. The new set, released on his own Gilded Wings Records, builds on the promise of 2014’s House Of Jacks and the 
2012 debut Blight And Blossom, which helped him win the Horizon Awards at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
As the son of English folk figurehead Ashley Hutchings, the co-founder of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the Albion Band, Dunlop’s storytelling style has elements of traditional British acoustic music. But Gilded, recorded with refreshing spontaneity in a series of live takes at Manchester’s Blue Print Studios, amply demonstrates how his creative palette continues to broaden.
Highlights of the new set include ‘Castello,’ which Dunlop was inspired to write after staying in a 14th century Italian castle during a European tour, and ‘Eternal Optimist,’ his observations on our increasingly impersonal digital existence, co-written with old colleagues from his own days in the Albion Band.
Dunlop is currently on an album tour of the UK to promote Gilded, which arrives on today’s release day at the Railway Inn in Winchester. Further dates can be seen here.
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