IT is probably a safe assumption that many of you reading this may not have heard of the music of American singer-songwriter Don Gallardo. We reckon that should be changed, and we’re going to tell you why.

This week, we are going to visit the first album we came across when Don Gallardo came into our orbit, thanks to our good friends at Black Cat Music Promotions when touring this album, known as Hickory, in 2015 at the Barbican Theatre across the Tamar in Plymouth.

To use a sentence in a level of brevity not known to Piers Morgan, this album can be best described as ‘sensational’. Simply that. Sensational.

To place Hickory into a single genre doesn’t really do it justice – it could be as equally argued that it is Americana as it is blues, or even a hint of country. It is all in equal measure, creating a genuinely easy listening fusion that straddles any perceived divides between the definitions of each genre.

One thing this album is not is harsh, with Don Gallardo’s vocals on the side of the gentle and floating as opposed to starting with ‘Down in the Valley’, this opening track leans more towards the ‘country’ genre we mentioned earlier with some of the guitar twangs not a million miles away from tracks common in the genre. What it is, however, is a very plodding track with Don’s vocals delivering a level of emotiveness.

After a visit to the slightly more upbeat but equally plodding Diamonds and Gold, track three on Hickory takes us to the genuinely excellent Carousel, which along with North Dakota Blues (more on that in a bit), are an absolute riot on stage when Don is accompanied by long-time sidekick Travis Stock and the incredible guitar talent of Jim Maving. Carousel is very much in the Americana genre, although it doesn’t take much imagination to imagine the song being performed somewhere in a Wild West saloon.

A relatively relaxed and easy listening triptych of tracks in the form of Midnight Sounds, Banks of the Mississippi and When the World Wakes Up (a genuinely outstanding ballad-esque track that is both dreamy and beautiful in equal measure) takes us to the second batch of up-tempo Americana belters in the form of Ophelia, We Cry (Ode to Levon Helm) and the previously mentioned North Dakota Blues, one of the outstanding tracks on the album.

North Dakota Blues is an unabashed country/americana romp that takes the classic songs in that genre and adds a new spin onto it. After a couple of listens, you’ll be singing along avidly – it’s genuinely almost impossible not to.

After North Dakota Blues, it’s perhaps inevitable that all of us listening, as well as Don, needs to take a breath, and in the mournful, reflective ‘A Cup of Rain’, that’s exactly what is delivered. The album is seen out with ‘Angel on the Dancefloor’ (also an absolute treat live), ‘This Time’, ‘Will We Ever Get it Right’ and ‘Pearls’ – completing an odyssey and musical adventure you’ll find stuck in your head like earworms.

Perhaps give it a try? You’d have to find it hard not to be impressed. Hickory can be bought from Don Gallardo’s bandcamp page and streamed on most streaming platforms.