(Rhino/Warner Music)

Another fine souvenir of one of this country’s best-loved festivals

As the years have rolled by, Byron Bay’s Blues & Roots Music Festival has grown both in its artistic range and its popularity. The recently ended 18th festival, which attracted some 80,000 people, proved those points once again, and a quick perusal of this 36-track double CD reaffirms it. The John Butler Trio’s Funky Tonight ensures it begins with a suitable flourish, leading into a swag of imported and local acts that more or less fit under the blues and roots umbrella. The O/S contingent includes Ben Harper, Taj Mahal, Bo Diddley and Bonnie Raitt, with The Waifs, Paul Kelly, Xavier Rudd and Ash Grunwald among the Aussies. But it’s the other names that establish just how broad Byron’s blues and roots brush has become – Wolfmother, Fishbone, The Roots, Gomez, Missy Higgins, Paolo Nutini, Ziggy Marley and Sierra Leone’s Refugee Allstars. Now that’s seriously a mixed bag. There have been similarly intriguing inclusions in recent years and yet somehow in this context, then and now, it all seems to make some kind of sense. More importantly, it’s an undeniably impressive array of talent that delivers the goods.

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BILL HOLDSWORTH

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