My Top Twenty Songs of 2023

So, here they are, my Top Twenty Songs of 2023 – not an easy choice with so many great albums released in the latter part of the year and so many great songs missed out, with honourable mentions to Lainey Wilson, Robbie Cavanagh, Joe Bonamassa, OMD, Jessie Ware, Ashley McBryde – to name but a few.

There may be new names on this list for some of you and some exciting songs waiting to be discovered – whilst some of these songs are new for me, they were released some years ago! If something does take your fancy, don’t just add it to your Spotify Playlist – download the track or, better still, buy the CD/Vinyl and go and see them live.

As always, my choices are an eclectic (and unexpected) mix – it’s always difficult to place them in a top 20.

So, make yourself a brew, open a can or fill a glass and sit back and enjoy some fabulous (mostly British) talent for the next hour or so!

You can listen to these songs on my Spotify Playlist

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1. White Horse Chris Stapleton

Chris Stapleton is no stranger to these pages and has featured several times but has never won my coveted song of the year until now. White Horse was the first single from the album Higher, released in November and sees Stapleton sticking to the tried and tested themes of repentant drinking and lasting love.

If you want a cowboy on a white horse
Riding off into the sunset
That’s the kind of love he will wait for
Hold on tight girl I ain’t there yet
No I ain’t there yet
No I ain’t there yet
White Horse

Stapleton has the rare honour of crossing over from country to rock to blues, but it’s his voice which has always been his foremost musical gift – which is why he won his seventh male artist of the year award at the CMA – the best male singer in Nashville that’s for sure (but Jelly Roll is sure to run him close in future years) and that’s never been more clear that it is on Higher.

2. Need a Favour Jelly Roll

Jelly Roll has exploded onto the Country Music scene in the past twelve months after moving away from rap, hip-hop and grunge which “weren’t good for my mental health.” Taken from the album Whitsitt Chapel, named after the church he attends and where  Jelly Roll  life was turned around from drugs and prison. Need A Favour is gospel infused country rock at it’s very best and a song which has won every accolade going.

I only talk to God when I need a favour
and I only pray when I ain’t got a prayer
So who the hell am I, who the hell am I to expect a saviour (Oh oh)
if I only talk to God when I need a favour
God I need a favour

Jelly also received the newcomer of the year at the CMA Awards which is slightly ironic given he is 39 years old.  His acceptance speech is something else and well worth watching here when he takes the CMA to church!

3. Council Skies Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

“It’s going back to the beginning. Daydreaming, looking up at the sky and wondering about what life could be,” Noel Gallagher recently said of Council Skies, his fourth album with High Flying Birds and his first in six years. Council Skies finds Gallagher moving away from the electro-psychedelia that dominated his last album, shifting back to his more traditional, anthemic song writing. Council Skies is, to me, the standout song on the album.  I love this version with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

4. Save Me Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson

Jelly Roll dropped Save Me during the pandemic and didn’t spend a dollar on promotion. The song spread virally, and by 2021 he was fielding offers from every major record label. To show just how fast he climbed from obscurity, the singer recalls being happy to sell 1,000 tickets in Connecticut in January 2022. By December he’d sold close to 20,000 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Jelly he went to jail 40 times, mostly for drug-related crimes or petty robbery and this song is a cry for help!

Somebody save me, me from myself
I’ve spent so long living in Hell
They say my lifestyle is bad for my health
It’s the only thing that seems to help

Although originally a solo, Jelly teamed up with Lainey Wilson to make it the cracker of a song it is. Wilson won the CMA Award for album of the year for Bell Bottom Country. 

5. Blank Page The War And Treaty

Another newcomer on the country scene are husband and wife duo Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter, known as War and Treaty bringing a soul/gospel inspired sound that is quite captivating. Formed in 2014, it’s only in the last few years that they’ve come to prominence and have been recognized by the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Grand Ole Opry and the Americana Music Association. In 2023, The War and Treaty became the first black duo to be nominated for the Country Music Association Award for Duo of the Year; along with being the first black duo to be nominated for the Academy of Country Music Award for Duo of the Year. They have received two nominations for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist. Their latest album Lovers Game, where Blank Page is taken from, marks a new stage in their career.

6. Screaming Hallelujah Far From Saints

Far From Saints are Kelly Jones of Stereophonics with Austin’s Patty Lynn and Dwight Baker of The Wind and The Wave, together they have co-written an album evoking a cross-genre sound spanning country, rock, folk, and Americana. I first heard Screaming Hallelujah on the Jo Whiley show on Radio 2 and was immediately smitten. Far From Saints is a project born from a shared, unadulterated love of music and collaboration, rich with emotions, creative integrity and defined by the unique sound of Kelly and Patty’s vocals.

7. Chains Of Ours Hannah White

Hannah White’s star has continued to rise since she played a House Gig earlier in the year – don’t think she’ll be playing many more of them anytime soon. Hannah won the song of the year award from the Americana Music Association UK for Car Crash. (She’s also nominated for a couple of awards this year, too). She’s toured with Paul Carrack played at just about every festival going and released her latest album Sweet Revolution in November – where Hannah has reached a rich vein of form in her song writing. Chains of Ours was released as the first single back in September.  Hannah told Americana UK that Chains of Ours is:

A song about being a woman – when doors keep closing before me. In every area of my life facing the assumption that I am not quite up to it because of my gender – and also fighting my own instinct to cower down and go quietly rather than speak loudly and insist on being heard. Everything takes me longer and feels harder and the lyrics (the cold on a moonlit night, the shadow of a bird in flight etc) refer to the forces people don’t see; or maybe they see them but don’t want to talk about them.

8. High Time Lauren Housley And The Northern Cowboys

STOP PRESS: 25 January 2024.
This is such a great song and one of my nominations as an Americana Music Association UK member! I have a great record of winning nominations in recent years!! Congratulations Lauren Housley so well deserved.

Another classy song from a reinvented Lauren (a real favourite of mine) as she now goes by the guise Lauren Housley and the Northern Cowboys. Housley’s band have recently expanded to include a brass section which has added a greater range of colour and energy to the bands overall sound – they are quite brilliant live. The benefits of this amalgamation have already borne fruit with the recently released EP ‘Something More’, of which the track ‘High Time’, is the opening song.

9. Better With You Simply Red

Simply Red are a band who’ve been off the scene for a few years but they roared back into the charts with Time in May 2023 – their thirteenth studio album. Bursting with a dose of lively and obliging pop ballads and funky fan-pleasers, this album really get back to the essence of what what made Simply Red well … Simply Red! Better With You is a song Mick Hucknall wrote for his wife:

Better with you, honey,
for the things that we’ll never regret
Better with you, honey,
as we did the things we’ll never forget

I much prefer the version recorded with the BBC Concert Orchestra rather than the album version!

10. ‘Til You Can’t Cody Johnson

Anyone who listens to Absolute Country Radio couldn’t fail to have heard ‘Til You Can’t by Cody Johnson – a real favourite of the Country scene. In fact, Johnson won Video of the Year and Single of the Year in the 2022 Country Music Association Awards. “Get off your butt and go get life,” Johnson said of the meaning of ‘Til You Can’t “Life’s not going to come to you. … Nobody owes you anything in this life. If you want something you gotta go get it.”

If you got a chance, take it,
take it while you got a chance
If you got a dream, chase it,
’cause a dream won’t chase you back,
If you’re gonna love somebody,
hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
Till you can’t.

11. Never Not Remember You Cooper Alan

Not an artist I’d heard of until this year when someone who was organising the funeral of a friend, which I officiated at, chose this song to be played at the end of the service.  I immediately warmed to it with its heartfelt and poignant lyrics.

So I’ll cry ’cause it’s over
And smile because we had you
Packed a whole lot of living
Even though it ended all too soon
And in time, I’ll start healing
But even when I get that feeling
No matter where I go or what I do
I’ll never not remember you

The up-and-coming country star has independently built a fanbase of over 10 million followers and has earned over 200 million streams on his music – no mean feat. Originally from North Carolina, Cooper Alan now finds himself in Nashville. Never Not Remember You was released as a single in August 2023.

12. The Angel Song Ezio

Who, you may ask, are Ezio? Formed in 1990 Ezio are Singer/songwriter Ezio Lunedei and guitarist and best friend Booga (Mark Fowell). Ezio have toured and performed around the globe gaining a reputation for dynamic and exciting performances delivered with energy, humour and emotional beauty. Lyrically and melodically Ezio’s song writing is world class as is the guitar virtuosity of Booga. I was loaned the album Black Boots On Latin Feet by a friend of mine and I was smitten. Released in 1995 The Angel Song was an instant stand out track.

13. Love Letter To The Blues Connor Selby

Billericay’s own Connor Selby is a rising British star in the traditions of Eric Clapton and Peter Green – I’ve been a fan of  for a number of years and he’s featured in my Top Twenty Songs in four of the last five years – no mean feat. Love Letter To the Blues is a bonus track on Connor’s self-titled second album (re) released in 2023. With fabulous guitar playing and stunning Hammond organ, this soon became a favourite track of mine. Connor explains why he wrote the song here 

14. Money For The Needy Joe Martin

Joe Martin is a Lancashire based singer songwriter and is deservedly gaining major attention on both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve watched Martin’s career with some interest after I first saw him at the British Folk Festival back in 2020. Heartbreak Cult featured in Top Twenty Songs of 2021. This song is taken from his latest, and quite excellent, album Empty Passenger Seat. Joe explained the story behind this song when we saw him live earlier in the year and it’s a bit of a heart-breaker.  I think the lyrics speak for themselves:

15. Sweet Sounds Of Heaven The Rolling Stones With Lada Gaga

The Rolling Stones dropped a new single in the autumn – and it’s a triumph. Featuring both Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder jamming with the band, Sweet Sound of Heaven is a thrilling, uplifting gospel-infused song that belongs near the top of the Stones’ back catalogue. It’s certainly one of their best singles/songs for many a year. It is one of Jagger’s finest performances and Lady Gaga is a perfect foil – with both of them ‘strutting their stuff’ on the video!

16. Come Over Morganway

Morganway have featured in my ‘Top Twenty Songs’ in recent years and, whilst they haven’t released any new music for a while, they came back with a bang with Come Over – a layered, energetic song which will be a stand out in the band’s future live sets. The vocals and musicianship show what the band is capable of. 2024 is set to be a big year for the band – as if it couldn’t be any better than 2023 with some amazing headline gigs and festivals under their belt. They are living up to Maverick Magazine’s description as: “One of the best and most exciting prospects to emerge in a long time.”  But we all knew that anyway, didn’t we?

17. Honeycomb Luke Jackson 

Canterbury based UK singer/songwriter Luke Jackson has been around for a number of years but only came to my attention in 2023. Following his appearances supporting Fairport Convention and Jools Holland at The Cliffs Pavilion in Southend, I promoted two gigs Billericay – a very well received set at Slipped Discs in Billericay back in March and a cosy House Gig in September. Honeycomb is taken from Jackson’s fourth album Journals released in 2018 and is probably one of the standout songs from his repertoire.

18. Cruel Britannia Louis Brennan

London-based Dubliner Louis Brennan is a singer-songwriter in the folk tradition. His folk however aren’t the field hands and travelling minstrels of yore but cutting lyrics that challenge the cosiness to today’s lifestyle. With more than a jibe to Rule Britannia (both musically and lyrically) Cruel Britannia’s bittersweet lyrics addresses the contentious issue of the legacy of colonialism and is taken from Brennan’s 2022 album Love Island. I first saw Louis supporting Hannah White the night before the Coronation of King Charles III and I was taken aback at him singing this song at a time when the nation was coming together to celebrate.

Oh Cruel Britannia
A mirror turned opaque
A cataracted vision
Of some past you can’t escape

Oh cruel Britannia
Exception to the rule
Peasants toil in the shallow soil
For lukewarm beer and gruel

19. I Don’t Love You Lindsay Ell 

I first came across Canadian singer/songwriter Lindsay Ell at the Country To Country (C2C) festival at the 02 in 2023.  I didn’t know quite what to expect but was blown away by her stage presence, songs and guitar playing. I Don’t Love You a gut wrenching song of heartbreak and lost love is taken from her fifth studio album, Heart Theory released in 2020.

20. Nyack Annie Dressner    

Nyack is a single from Cambridge-based New Yorker and Alt-folk singer songwriter, Annie Dressner’s third album Coffee At The Corner Bar, released in 2020. I’d never heard of Dressner before this year – Annie contacted me about playing a house gig, but that was postponed because she had a chance to play at The Black Deer Festival. Dressner has been a full-time musician since 2011. A gifted singer/songwriter, she has been likened to an ‘uptempo Mazzy Star, Phoebe Bridgers and First Aid Kit’ but I’d thrown in a few shades of early Simon & Garfunkel. Nyack is a song of childhood memories of how she and her brother would visit the Rockland County village. Dressner is on tour in the early part of 2024 and is well worth looking out for.

BONUS TRACK Looking At You Now Eleanor Every

I’m always on the look out for new talent and Ellie is no exception! Ellie is 23 years old and suffers from multiple health issues and that makes this song such an amazing achievement. Looking At You Now is Ellie’s first single – put out independently as a result of a crowdfund – which I’ve supported. It is hoped her debut album will be released in 2024. If you are a Taylor Swift fan you are sure to love this too. You can listen to it on Spotify below or, better still, download it from iTunes.