When you get the call to take your music 5000 miles from
home, the chances of making an impact are pretty high with respect to the
quality of your wares. Jenny Ritter got such a call to make the trip from
Vancouver to Britain and impressed sufficiently to get a repeat
two years on. The link between the two visits has been an invite to play at
the prestigious Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow and share the stage with
many other like minded roots musicians. Of course it’s also useful to tag a few
extra dates onto the schedule to play more shows and in 2016 it was the turn of
Birmingham’s Kitchen Garden Café to host Jenny and her band. Since that inaugural
visit, Jenny has released her second solo album, so a few of us knew what to
expect albeit this was the first time seeing her live.
The venue Jenny elected to play on the trek south from
having the honour of supporting Lucinda Williams north of the border was well
used to hosting folk and roots acts from North America, with most having fond
memories of playing the intimate brickwork surroundings. At the end of the
show, Jenny joined the long list of fellow Canadians to play the Kitchen and
her performance matched up well to fellow compatriots such as Po Girl, Sarah MacDougall,
Cara Luft and Amelia Curran to name a few. She also had the added benefit of being backed
by a three piece band which did an excellent job of helping Jenny present
mainly original songs, with the obligatory Neil Young cover to close the show.
Jenny’s brand of folk music has a bright and breezy persona
with an inner strength. Like many fellow songwriters, the inspirations are
mainly observational and situational, all expertly delivered by a well formed
compact band. Jenny herself fluctuates between playing guitar and banjo, with
the latter possessing a magical sound. She acknowledged the main player as
Adam Iredale-Grey who majored predominately on fiddle with the occasional
switch to acoustic guitar. He is also heavily involved in the producing of
Jenny’s music. The other permanent band member was Ryan Boeur, who succeeded in
optimising the sound of electric guitar in a venue which requires precision
electrification. The touring quartet was completed by Nat Sabat on stand-up bass
who had the dual distinction of being both a newbie and sole American alongside
three Canadians. Together they more than held their own and allowed a pair of
forty-five minute sets to flourish impressively.
Most of the songs were from the recent album RAISED BY
WOLVES with a couple taken off the 2012 release BRIGHT MAINLAND. One from each
record opened the first set in the guise of the elder ‘They
Can’t Tell’ and the more recent ‘A
History of Happiness’. These were equally among the highlights of this part
of the show with perhaps both just being eclipsed by a new song which was
introduced prior to the break. Inspired by the sickle moon, Jenny hinted that
it may eventually take the title of the main chorus line namely ‘Baby Moon’, but either way it sounded
great and signalled a positive future.
With increased informative chat on offer after the interval,
we learnt a little more about the songs such as the finding Vancouver theme to ‘Five Nights’, the struggles of commissioned
song writing in ‘Museum Song’ and the
need to live in the moment as expressed in ‘Remember
the Life’. The second half saw Jenny and the guys excel on the strongest
song from the RAISED BY WOLVES album ‘Wolfe
Wife’ and encourage the audience to exercise their vocal chords a little
with the chorus friendly ‘We Must Sing’.
Little invitation was also needed to join in the encore choice of ‘Heart of Gold’ which had a superb roots-style
arrangement to flavour what is a conventional standard. All these songs
were beautifully sung by Jenny, while shaking off those ailments which so often
afflict touring musicians at this time of the year.