Steve Tilston - Last Call (2025)

Some 50+ years on from his 1971 debut ‘An Acoustic Confusion’ Steve Tilston has announced that ‘Last Call’ is to be his last album. A venerable member of the UK folk scene over the years, with strong ties to the likes of Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch and John Renbourne, Tiltston has never achieved the acclaim accorded to his peers and this album, his swan song, is unlikely to reverse that, but it’s sure to delight his many fans.

The album opens with the very sweet strains of ‘Apple Tree Town’, a finger picked bucolic portrait of English pastoral delights, sweetened even more by a string section bustling away. An earthier and more traditional image of England is invoked in the closing number, ‘Sweet Primroses’, a traditional song cast in the shadow of a Child Ballad with its sad narrative.

In between these bookends Tilston is at times more gritty and topical as on the jaunty quickstep of ‘Hard Cheese’ which is apparently about the tarnished reputation of a certain politician while ‘Go Away From My Door’ is Tilston’s wearied response to far right populism. On a more personal note, ‘Night Follows Day’ has a note of optimism woven within its very fine trappings of guitar, banjo and pedal steel and ‘Biding Time’, a bluesy number, maintains that sense of optimism. In the opposite direction there’s the overheard conversation featured on on the wistful ‘No Tears To Spare’, quite a gorgeous song.

Recorded with a small ensemble, the album is intimate and warm and, at its centre, Tilston gets to display his guitar skills on the title tune, almost six minutes of picking which is reminiscent of sixties guitar heroes such as Jansch and John Fahey. If this is indeed his last offering then Tilston goes out on a high note.