There are four new releases en route in 2020 so here’s a quick heads-up on what’s imminent incoming.

First up is the 7-track ‘We Shall Overcome EP’ which is available to download now with CD copies landing next week. I recorded these protest covers with the principle aim of selling it to raise money for #WSO2020 causes and the brand new #NotOnOurWatchCampaign. Six are songs associated with Pete Seeger, and the seventh The Men They Couldn’t Hang‘s ‘Ghosts Of Cable Street’ which Paul Simmonds kindly gave me permission to include here. I had help from The Hatfield Brigade on ‘Solidarity Forever’ and ‘Which Side Are You On?’; Commoners Choir on ‘We Shall Overcome’; and there’s some absolutely sublime Rebekah Findlay fiddle on ‘Tomorrow Is A Highway’ and ‘Step By Step’. The CD is a fiver, and the download ‘Name Your Price’, but every penny will go to supporting WSO causes wherever need is greatest.

You can bag that here:

https://joesolomusic.bandcamp.com/album/we-shall-overcome-ep

Second is the ‘No Pasaran: Special Edition’ which will land next month. The original album sold out late last year, but I had more songs which helped further to tell the story of Hull’s volunteers and I wanted to include them as bonus tracks. So there are five additional songs again featuring Commoners Choir and Rebekah Findlay, but also with a very special Solidarity Choir featuring relatives of Hull’s International Brigade heroes joining me in a call-and-response tribute to their forefathers. There is brand new artwork by Kevin Pearson which is also available as a limited edition signed and numbered A4 print if you’re quick. You can pre-order the CD, download, or bag that artwork here:

https://joesolomusic.bandcamp.com/album/no-pasaran-special-edition

Third on the roster is the brand new Lithium Joe single ‘Answer Machine/Forget To Remember’ which we finish on January 30th and will get out there as soon as we can. The backing track is almost complete, so it’s up to Dave Foy and meself to get our vocals down and make the thing fly. Bonus track on the CD will be ’29 More Stolen Summers’ an acoustic track featuring Rebekah on fiddle.

The fourth will follow in the Summer. It’s a 10-track CD of songs written as we pick through the rubble of one struggle and dust ourselves down for the next. With the working title ‘Keep On Fighting’, I’ll be chiselling away at the demos and re-records over the coming weeks before the gigs make recording impossible once more. You can hear the early versions here:

https://joesolomusic.bandcamp.com/album/keep-on-fighting

I’ll also be working on a double-CD compiling my best work so far and putting together an accompanying songbook. This may take some time though so early 2021 is more realistic than this year…..but then who knows.

Please support these releases if you can. As ever, a fiver from every CD sale goes to WSO causes, in particular to Pauline Town to help fund her extraordinary work fighting homelessness in Greater Manchester; but on top of that it is so good to travel miles and miles from home and hear people singing along with every word. That is an incredible feeling I will never tire of, and it can’t happen unless you know the stuff!

Plenty to be going on with there I reckon.

But there’s plenty more left in me yet.