It’s a collection that grabs all the loneliness of that vast space that is America, the sadness and disenchantment, the excitement and possibility inherent in the great American Dream. Americana is the edginess lacking in so much of American commercial music. It captures something rarely found, that elusive balance between sentimentality and depth which Jackson Browne so eloquently managed on his life-on-the-road masterpiece ‘Running on Empty’. ‘Sweet Tequila Blues’ gets you yearning for Austin even if you’ve never been closer to America than Liverpool.

The out and out country of Old Crow Medicine Show’s ‘Wagon Wheel’, sits alongside The Little Willes in the bitter low down grit of ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’ and the jazzier ‘Sing A New Song’ by Eliza Lynn. Of course there’s more to it than there is here, and the Putamayo take on Americana does not mine the darker seams of Americana, but it’s a good start, and a worthy point from which to discover the pained, dark, tortured artists on the fringes, the more gothic Americana.

Americana will make you want to take up the pedal steel guitar and sit out on a stoop somewhere watching the wagons roll on by and is a reassuring reminder of a wider view of America than many of us are want to see. In the enigmatic words of Josh Ritter ‘It’s a long way to heaven, it’s closer to Harrisburg, but that’s still a long way from where we are.’

Putumayo Presents Americana is released on 31 July.