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for a particular show, I tend to let my mind wander and often end up with an entirely
new tune – it’s great when that happens, but I wouldn’t call it practising.

​BiTS: Who (if anyone) gives you critical feed back?

​​AR: Oh, everyone all the time. And unless it’s someone whose musical tastes are
very obviously the opposite of mine, I do try to consider it... But then I’ve never been
good at doing what I’m told – probably the reason I got into this business to begin
with.

​BiTS: What comes next? Do you have a plan?

​AR: Gigwise, after Ireland and England, there’s the RuhnuRahu Festival on Ruhnu,
which is a small Estonian island off the Latvian coast. I was originally meant to play

there last year, but there was a storm and the entire first day’s programme was
cancelled, since neither the performers nor the audience could reach the island...
Then in September, I’ll be doing ten days in Germany, plus a Latvian show en route.

On the recording front, I’m hoping to cut a few new solo numbers this winter,

incorporating my New Zealand-made Boney Toes stompbox – it sounds fabulous, I
just need a bit more practice with it before pressing “record”.

Plus there’s that non-instrumental project of my songs we started with the Alabama

vocalist Red Mouth and the Finnish harpist Jantso Jokelin during COVID. They were
both on my first album in 2010, and you probably know Jantso has just won the
solo/duo gold in the European Blues Challenge. Anyhow, there’s 4-5 songs still to
be recorded to wrap up that album. And then in 2026, I hope to be celebrating my

50th birthday and 30 years on stage, so “watch this space”!