Holly Carter - Leave Your Mark (2025)

Tasty debut full-length album from a very talented singer-songwriter-instrumentalist on her way up. Holly Carter may not be a name that readers are too familiar with (although she formed part of our Maverick Festival Review back in June, and the first single of her new album has been featured), but it is very likely that she soon will be, for she is a prodigious talent. Her main claim to fame so far is that she was voted best instrumentalist in the Americana Music Association UK awards in 2023 and again in 2024. Her fingerpicking acoustic and electric guitar-playing style, together with being one of the few professional female steel guitar players in the UK, attest to her musical ability, and you can add to that a substantial songwriting skill. And now comes her first full-length album, “Leave Your Mark”.

Carter is based in Bristol, currently a hotbed of musical talent, and has made something of a name for herself with her gigs local to that area, as well as appearances at various music festivals such as the aforementioned Maverick Festival and at Glastonbury where she featured with Billy Bragg, and various tours around the country, often as a session musician due to her instrumental skills.

She has been influenced by a number of artists – Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie are just two of the traditional folk poets who influenced her in the direction of historical events and people, particularly where it impacted the working class. A project involving the story of the American union activist Joe Hill is close to her heart, as are the concerns of Northern working people who were the subject of photographs of Tish Murtha, both of whom are referenced in their way on the new album; as is Stetson Kennedy, an activist who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan several decades ago. She is publicly grateful for the support of the local community and unions (she is a member of the Musicians’ Union) in helping to guide her development as a musician. Instrumentally, she counts the likes of Mark Knopfler, John Fahey and Doc Watson as inspiration for her fingerstyle playing, and Tommy Morrell for steel guitar.

A well-received EP, “All of You… And Me“, released in 2021, has now been followed up by her debut full-length album, ten songs that highlight not only her songwriting ability but her instrumental prowess. The single ‘What You See‘ starts the ball rolling, a catchy tribute to Murtha with a brilliant opening guitar riff that pulls the listener in from the get-go. And let it be said here that the guitar playing throughout the album, whether by Carter or by electric guitarist Joe Wilkins, is quite outstanding. Lyrically, it is often rather clever, too, as in the lead track “It’s so hard to offer up the truth without offence / Every different kind of lens makes a different kind of sense”.

Explaining recently to a live audience she mainly writes songs about mental health and dead people she finds interesting, the second track is called “Stetson Kennedy“, who was a folklorist, author and human rights activist in Florida who, as noted, bravely infiltrated the KU Klux Klan and exposed many of their secrets to the world at large .“You pulled the wool over their eyes / Laid your life upon the line”. He actually lived to a ripe old age.

‘Bear with Me’ is a lovely, lilting tune that addresses the path that led Carter to finding out she had ADHD. ‘He’s a Man’ explores self-discovery through the eyes of a man who is closed off and struggling to find some sort of happy stability in his life, all sung to a cinematic guitar riff right out of a 70s movie. The gently rocking ‘Follow Your Lead‘, about self-confidence, or the lack of, is another delightful track. The guitar breaks in all the songs never outstay their welcome; the longest is probably on the slightly bluesy ‘Idle Eyes‘ with its 60s vibe.

The only track that Carter didn’t write is ‘Where the Fraser River Flows‘, a Joe Hill song written about 100 years ago; he was a union activist from Sweden who lived in the USA and agitated for workers’ rights for many years. His story has so enraptured Carter that the project about him encompasses audience participation talks, and there’s usually a segment about him in her shows. The song is slightly out of character with the rest of the album, being something of a country swing, but its importance to Carter is clear. ‘Out to Sea‘ is a delightful ballad about failing to connect with others, and it showcases Carter’s lovely steel guitar playing. And the album rounds off with a beautiful instrumental ‘Morewen‘ that particularly highlights Carter’s finger-picking guitar style, and is a lovely, calming way to end the album.

Carter has a delightful voice, with a slightly world-weary feel about it. The guitars are well supported by a fine, restrained rhythm section of John Parker on bass and Matt Brown on drums. Peter Miles recorded the tracks at Middle Farm Studios in Devon, direct to tape, giving the whole album a real-time feel, while Carter and Wilkins produced. Carter is destined for greater success, and this debut full-length album is a fine testimony to her innate musicality and interesting songwriting. It’s called “Leave Your Mark“, and she has certainly done that.