KIERAN GOSS - I’ll Be Seeing You (Kobalt Music)

It’s hard not to like Kieran Goss.

The Co Down-born singer-songwriter makes it so difficult with his trademark mixture of country-tinged slowmos and catchy little folk-flecked acoustic numbers.

The key is a likeability factor throughout.

New album, his eighth solo in total, is more of the same gorgeously uplifting songs — quite a feat considering a year beset by personal tragedy with the deaths of his mother and young sister-in-law from cancer.

And arguably, the Texas-recorded I’ll Be Seeing You also boasts some of his best ever tunes including Into Your Arms and the gentle Make The Morning Shine.

Goss is supported on the album by the outstanding Kimmie Rhodes, who is returning the favour for Goss’s help with her brilliant 2008 record Walls Fall Down.

Indeed, Rhodes not only appears as back-up but she’s also jointly written a number of the tunes including the lovely Shining Like The Sun which was on Walls Fall Down.

DEAN MARTIN - Amore (Capitol)

As a super-cool Rat Pack guy, Dean Martin was a big draw in the Sixties.

His speciality was romance — and wooing his fans with a number of biggies such as Dream A Little Dream of Me and Just In Time.

Just in time for Valentines Day comes a classy collection, Amore, of Martini love songs — the best of which is You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You.

I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face is among the highlights.

MARY HOPKIN - Recollections (Mary Hopkin Music)

I have to thank Mary Hopkin for my earliest musical memory.

As a toddler I remember hearing her Those Were The Days for the first time — and it seemed brilliant.

Then came the Eurovision’s Knock Knock Who’s There — and I was hooked. That was then...

I soon grew out of little Mary’s sweet vocals — and Recollections, a new album charting her career between 1970 and 1988 simply leaves me cold.

THE OUTLAWS - Ghost Riders (SPV Yellow Label)

In the early Seventies The Outlaws could have had as much success as their Southern rock legend counterparts, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Inexplicably, though, they were denied the big-bucks commercial achievement. In terms of Southern boogie, The Outlaws were certainly up there with the best.

And newly remastered second album Ghost Riders suggests they really should have made it big.