Fuller blind boy

Timeless tales of loss and redemption fuel folk-informed Southern songwriter’s stirring return

Hugely expanded version of the great Irish guitarist’s solo debut

An all-star panel – including Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Terry Chimes – vote for the greatest songs Strummer and co ever recorded

One bright Sunday morning, MC Taylor is driving through his patch of North Carolina, past New Hope Creek and the Eno River, over the Chatham County Line and the James Taylor Bridge in Chapel Hill, near the Haw River and the valley that he has meditated upon in song these past few years. Through apparently endless forests, Taylor's destination is Saralyn, a kind of hippy settlement just outside of Pittsboro.

Daring and masterful: late-flowering Plant blooms anew...

As the sky threatens to rain, we head into the safety of the Uncut tent to see Alela Diane.

The Raconteurs album is playing for the second time this morning, and I’ve just got round to reading the paperwork which arrived in my inbox with the download just before 9am. “Consolers Of The Lonely”, it notes, is “loud, bombastic and littered with changes of tempo.” Can’t argue with any of that.