1. Jack Harris - The Flame and the Pelican (Own Label) - Quite possibly the best singer-songwriter to emerge from BuilthWells, Harris returns to music after five years of studies to present a sophomore collection of English and American folk that showcase his acoustic fingerwork, soulful burr and literate lyrics. With influences that range from Paul Simon and Richard Thompson to Eric Taylor and poet Wallace Stevens, his are songs veined with ancient tales, tongues and wisdoms, at their best on Wedding Dentures' tale of a bartered bride with wooden teeth.

2. My Darling Clementine - How Do You Plead? (Drumfire) - Finally available two years after making my Top 10 list, whether tugging heartstrings, sobbing over beers or sparking with inspired wordplay, Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish’s affectionate homage to classic old school country duets conjures the very best of George and Tammy, Dolly and Porter and Gram and Emmylou while sounding as fresh as this morning.

3. Joseph Parsons - Hope For Centuries (Meer Music) A solo album from the US Rails frontman introduces touches of blues and gospel to his Americana base on songs of love and loss, hope and despair, delivered in a warm baritone evocative of Bruce Cockburn and Warren Zevon. Balanced between rhythmic grooves, urgent boogie and border country, there’s not a single weak track but Roman & Michael’s true story of a gay couple who were early victims of AIDS epidemic is the stand out.

4. Josh T Pearson - Last Of The Country Gentlemen (Mute) - The former Lift To Experience frontman resurfaced from several years below the radar with a stunning solo debut of starkly, emotionally desolate songs carved from his own weathered life and preacher’s son background. Recalling both Buckleys as well as Mark Eitzel, his songs are forlorn self-lacerating epics somewhere between Greek tragedy and Cormac McCarthy, Sweetheart, I Ain’t Your Christ a masterpiece of regret, rejection and despair.

5. Rod Picott - Welding Burns (Welding Rod) A deeply autobiographical collection of Detroit-fuelled blue collar narratives about industrial decline, busted dreams, broken relationships, a tormented men trapped living their father’s life of disillusion and desperation. Delivered with strong melodies and gritty voice, there’s shards of tenderness between the bruises on an album that speaks powerfully to these troubled times.

6. Graham Robins - The Shipping News (Own Label) - Where has this man been hiding? Van Morrison’s the Watford-born singer’s obvious touchstone and he has the same magic in both his voice and pen, distilling fumes of Celtic soul and Memphis country into his own heady brew that also embraces jazz blues swing, TexMex shuffle and Waiting On The Healing’s journey into the mystic. Absolutely stunning.

7. Dan Whitehouse - Dan Whitehouse (Own Label) - Putting the emphasis on voice and guitar, the Wolverhampton singer-songwriter’s much anticipated debut album delivers pastoral folk that will spark inevitable Nick Drake references but also touches on alt country and even a dash of shanty. With simple but affecting tales of love, relationships and self-image, it stakes a persuasive claim to the UK’s troubadour throne.

8. Gavin Adam Wood - Souls Apart (Banania) - Written during his time working with UN relief agencies, the Leek born singer-songwriter’s predominantly acoustic debut’s inspired by those experiences and loosely linked by a theme of separated soul mates. His voice and writing recalls the vintage days of Jackson Browne while Whispering Wind suggests what James Taylor might have sounded like had he hailed from the Peak District.

9. Jennie Lowe Stearns & The Fire Choir - Blurry Edges (Continental) - Donna The Buffalo’s founder returns with a fourth album of sparsely arranged, late night confessionals haunted by memories, mortality and lives out of focus. An outstanding if elliptical lyricist her images uncork wells of emotions within songs that occupy an uncertain world between waking and sleeping with melodies that tap as much into minimalist jazz as country.

10. Beth Wimmer -Ghosts & Men (Radiosky) - The Switzerland based Bostonian’s second in as many years offers a mix of uptempo blues and soul Americana and more laid back balladry, casting its gaze to the 70s to conjure thoughts of Bonnie Raitt, Joni and the late Nicolette Larson on compassionate songs of loss and leaving. With an atmosphere of apocalyptic foreboding, her slow, swampy cover of Creedence’s Bad Moon Rising is worth the purchase alone.

I’d also like to raise the flag and salute Joe Summers, an upcoming Walsall singer-songwriter whose self-released Wincraft Sessions EP (recorded at Stevie Winwood’s) features the banjo strummed folk shanty Turn The Boat Around, quite possibly my favourite song of the year. Watch out for this man in 2012

Highly Recommended: Mark Wynn - Stories, Rags and Stomps (Little Num Num Music), Aaron Yorke - Little Blocks (Own Label), The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh (Bella Union), Scott Matthews - What The Night Delivers (San Remo), Gillian Welch - The Harrow and The Harvest (Acony), Jake Morley - Many Fish To Fry (Sandwich Emporium), Teddy Thompson - Bella (Verve Forecast), Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo - Almanac (Everyone Sang), The Secret Sisters -The Secret Sisters (Beladroit), Ben Glover - Before The Birds (Own Label), Annis Brander - Glass People In The Woods (Lonely Road), Israel Nash Gripka - Barn Doors And Concrete Floors (Continental Song City), Eilen Jewell - Queen Of The Minor Key (Signature Sounds), Jon Allen - Sweet Defeat (Monologue), Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What (Hear Music), Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers - Starlight Hotel (Signature Sounds), Hat Check Girl - Six Bucks Shy (Gallway Bay), Thea Gilmore & Sandy Denny - Don’t Stop Singing (Mighty Village/Island), Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire (PaxAm), The Jayhawks - Mockingbird Time (Decca)

Unfortunately art classes in prisons have been cut back together with all their Adult Education classes. Not only do Arts as a whole have a civilising effect on a percentage of the prison population by increasing their self-worth, but also gives them anger-management and coping mechanisms - the lack of which may have brought them to prison in the first place!