Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane (Decca) ***

Alison Krauss’s most recent triumph, her 2007 certified platinum collaboration with Robert Plant, Raising Sands, notched up a total of six Grammy awards. Paper Airplane is no anti-climax four years on – an all-original collection with her renowned band Union Station. This is authentic American folk with Cajun overtones so timeless it could have been recorded during the halcyon days of Woody Guthrie. If Lay My Burden Down had been written in the 1950s, it would still be a staple diet of the folk cellar aficionado of today.

Reg Nelson, 60, Heaton

Sarabeth Tucek – Get Well Soon (Sonic Cathedral) ***

Somewhat of a concept album based around a narrative of the death of her father, Tucek is not afraid to broadcast her grief to the world. At times haunting, albeit bordering on the self-indulgent, she goes places the modern female singer-songwriter steers well clear of. Definitely not for the mainstream, but one can’t help admiring the conviction of the storylines. Leaving aside the gloom, it’s a collection of well-crafted songs that any aspiring singer-songwriter would be proud of. Probably too deep for the increasingly-superficial needs of the record-buying public.

Reg Nelson, 60, Heaton

Neville Skelly – Poet And The Dreamer (Setanta) ***

You might think you know what to expect from a lad from Liverpool who grew up on a council estate, and like so many before him got lost in the world of music, but Neville Skelly is very different. He owes his inspiration more to the likes of Sinatra and Gershwin than the Beatles. Poet And The Dreamer is, to my mind, more dreamer than poet. Lush, languid and melancholic, the songs on this album are drawn from two decades of writing and are both varied and strong. The album features several new songs, and one audacious take on Eleanor Rigby, just to remind us of his Liverpudlian roots.

Daphne Rowbotham, 60, retired, Shipley