The Roaming Roots Review was a great night.
The idea was that various artists would come out and join the house band Roddy Hart and the Lonesome Fire and do one of their songs plus a cover of someone considered to be a troubadour .
Roddie and his band kicked off with Tenth Avenue Freeze Out posted if only to annoy George and Swiss Adam.Topical given the weather that the East coast of the USA was facing.
Matthew E White was first up and was ok. Reasonable covers of John Prine's Angel From Montgomery and a Lee Hazlewood number,
He was followed by This is the Kit who were excellent and yes Swede they did Silver John.They were excellent and covered Satellite of Love plus the Robert Burns song Now Westlin Winds which Kate had stumbled across via Dick Gaughan
Scottish singer Iain Anderson was pretty good covering a Nick Cave number plus an excellent Into the Mystic with Blue Rose Code whose solo number was Amy Winehouse's Rehab
Frazey Ford was a bit of a disappointment particularly as I like The Be Good Tanyas. In fairness she had sound problems with one of her songs. I'm not sure that Ann Peebles was a troubadour though.
Justin Currie was actually very good although if he was made of chocolate he would eat himself.
Honeyblood were not on for very long but Stina did a great version of Rebel Rebel
The revelation of the night for me was Anderson East. He came on wearing a poncho and then this wonderful soul voice emerged on songs including an excellent version of Tupelo Honey which led Justin Currie to thank Roddie Hart for asking him to follow that.
I had never heard of him and thought given the name that it was actually a group.
Then Kris Kristofferson sauntered on and effortlessly pulled off half a dozen songs the highlight undoubtedly being Sunday Morning Coming Down.
The night was finished off by everyone singing Knocking on Heaven's Door followed by Keep on Rocking in the Free World.
Terrific stuff.
One minor and one major gripe. Minor - how can you have a night paying tribute to troubadours without featuring Townes Van Zandt?. Major - the group of drunken Weegie women who slightly marred KK's performance by acting as if they were at the karaoke in their dodgy local.
Bruce Springsteen - Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
Dick Gaughan - Now Westlin Winds
Apologies for overuse of the word excellent
ReplyDeleteNo apology needed, CC - 'excellent' is a good, honest, descriptive word. Haha! Angel From Montgomery is my favourite John Prine song, so I hope he did it justice. (Can't remember the last time I went to a live performance here.)
DeleteSunday Morning Coming Down - ah, that's a good one! It's been decades since I felt that bad myself though. ;-)
I'm a Sam Stone man myself Marie
DeleteSounds like a great night. I've been lucky enough to see This Is The Kit a number of times over the last few years - from a disused chapel attached to a local vegan cafe to a clearing in the woods outside Sheffield - and she always puts on a good show.
ReplyDelete