Barnaby Smith

As Australian Morris dancing's biggest weekend approaches in the shape of the National Folk Festival, Barnaby Smith examines this colourful tradition, which despite centuries of popularity in England, has only been a part of the Australian folk scene for a few decades.

As Rufus Wainwright concludes his Australian tour, Barnaby Smith beholds an artist at a crossroads, who may have to leave pop music behind in order to fulfil his talent.

From interviewing the great and the notorious in rock and roll to donning armoured press vests in war zones, Andrew Mueller's career has taken some adventurous turns. Barnaby Smith profiles the expat Australian author and journalist.

How To Dress Well, aka Chicago's Tom Krell, is a true innovator when it comes to both recording and performing, even if his music is characterised by profound sadness. Barnaby Smith looks ahead to his Australian shows, including a performance at Sydney Festival.

Music and songwriting is a way to reflect on the small triumphs and failures of everyday living, for Hollie Fullbrook of Tiny Ruins. Ahead of the band's appearance at Sydney Festival, she speaks to Barnaby Smith about the confessions and fragilities that make up her deeply thoughtful second album Brightly Painted One, as well as collaborations with some very important people.

American singer Alela Diane suffered for her art when making latest album About Farewell. As she prepares for her first ever trip to Australia to play at Sydney Festival, the ghosts from her past still play a crucial role in her present as she looks toward a fruitful, renewed musical future, writes Barnaby Smith.

A very special literary initiative sees a selection of Australia's Indigenous writers travelling to India to attend festivals and explore connections between their work and India's Dalit renaissance. Ahead of the next leg of the project in Goa - and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Australia this month - Barnaby Smith talks to curator Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty about the unique LITERARY COMMONS!

Soulfest represents a landmark event for soul music in Australia thanks to an astonishing line-up for its inaugural tour, which heads to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland. Barnaby Smith previews this ambitious new addition to the festival calendar.

Giordano Nanni and Hugo Farrant have created a unique YouTube series that is both genuinely hilarious and devastatingly critical of mainstream media, politicians and other public figures. Barnaby Smith speaks with the duo behind Juice Rap News.

The legacy of Bob Dylan stretches well beyond the parameters of music, with one of Australia's leading poets, Robert Adamson, one of his most heartfelt admirers. As Dylan continues his Australian tour, Barnaby Smith speaks to Adamson about what Dylan means to him.

American songwriter Joe Henry is happy carving out his own musical niche for those who are willing to devote themselves to it. Ahead of his performance at Brisbane Festival, he speaks with Barnaby Smith about songwriting, literary influences and being an artist's artist.

With panels on Australia's refugee policy, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, freedom of speech, political corruption and environmental catastrophe, the 2014 Byron Bay Writers Festival, which ran from August 1 - 3, exposed audience members to discussions that provoked sadness, anger and resignation, writes Barnaby Smith.

Long branded the son of one of the most significant figures in popular music, Sean Lennon has finally found his own musical identity, writes Barnaby Smith.

A new documentary sheds light on the mercurial talent that was one-time member of The Byrds, Gene Clark, a character full of contradictions as well as sublime music. As Barnaby Smith finds out, the film is designed to attract new fans to a somewhat overlooked talent, as well as chronicle his tumultuous life.

What role do regional film festivals play in supporting the Australian film industry?

A highlight of this year's Sydney Festival must be Lee Ranaldo's Hurricane Transcriptions, which he performs with Australia's Ensemble Offspring on January 16 on the same bill as Mike Patton with his Laborintus II. Ranaldo's work, inspired by Hurricane Sandy's impact on New York City, is natural phenomena made music more than compositional expression, writes Barnaby Smith.

Carolyn Cassady was one of the most influential women in the Beat Generation, providing a domestic counterpoint to life on the road for both Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, writes Barnaby Smith.

This month marks the 20 year anniversary of Crowded House's Together Alone, often regarded by fans and critics alike as the band's best album. Neil Finn recalls the dramatic and mystical landscape where the album was recorded and the effect that period had on the band, reflecting on the eventual split of the group

On September 21, the Royal Academy of Art in London will unveil Australia: a major exhibition of Australian landscape art. Covering the last 200 years, the exhibition promises to chart the evolution of a nation through its art, but the spectre of colonialism casts a shadow, writes Barnaby Smith.

Many films have attempted to capture the euphoria that the work of visionary musicians gives us, but few succeed, writes Barnaby Smith.

In her first year at the helm of Sydney Writers' Festival, Jemma Birrell has chosen to curate a program with the theme of "storytelling" at its heart. It gives Birrell an opportunity to push the festival in all directions, writes Barnaby Smith.

Is folk music that which is 'for and of the people'? At the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Barnaby Smith discovers musicians who are revelling in the genre's multiplicity and proving that folk music is a fluid thing that cannot be shackled.

As precision choreography and theatrical melodrama devours pockets of the live music business, Barnaby Smith talks to four Australian artists who cherish the art of live performance in all its intensity, ugliness and imperfection.