MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
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The Electric Muse Revisited
Engrossing account of an era when the crossover between folk and rock began
Electric Muse pic: Roy Harper
[Man Alive/Creative Commons] 
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
THE ORIGINAL Electric Muse was written by Karl Dallas (Melody Maker), Dave Laing (Let It Rock), Robert Shelton (New York Times) and Robin Denselow (The Guardian) and published in 1975.
It traced British folk music from its mid-1960s revival up till the mid-1970s. Sadly, only Denselow is alive to see its significantly updated publication accompanied by a wonderful 4-CD box set.
Its early chapters compare the 1960s British folk boom with the US, where folk music consisted of Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Hank Williams, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan and The Byrds — not forgetting the 1920s and ‘30s musicians who recorded hillbilly, blues and gospel, music that Rolling Stone columnist Greil Marcus called “old weird America.”
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