Oz blues and roots music is not only alive and kicking, it’s stomping through sawdust-littered hardwood floors. No one knows this better than local blues maestro Ash Grunwald, for when he’s not touring internationally and picking up gongs such as album of the year at last year’s Australian Blues Awards for Live at the Corner, he also hosts JJJ’s Roots ’n All program. As implied, Ash gets around, and this sense of weathered worldliness etches itself into the music like the lines on an old delta bluesman’s face. Fuse that with contemporary, stripped back grooves and adroitly adventurous production as he does on Give Signs, and you can rest assured that Ash has got some more awards heading his way.

Jayson Argall is from Readings St.Kilda