Three Chords and the Truth UK

2019 is an active yet reflective year for Bella Hardy. The acclaimed English folk singer-songwriter has been in a non-stop cycle of music making, tours, album releases and innovative projects for close on twenty years. Maybe the time to take stock, and reflect on a back catalogue of an album count nearly in double figures and a recording song catalogue pushing three figures. It is certainly prolific output for a artist only in their mid thirties While not ready to step away from the limelight, she has taken a carefully selected twenty five songs from the catalogue, added a couple of news ones, and delivered POSTCARDS & POCKETBOOKS: THE BEST OF BELLA HARDY. This is a gift to old fans in a neatly presented compendium, and new ones in a shortened showcase format. The only polite thing to do next is take these songs on the road to remind folks why she is such as compelling live performer as well. Birmingham's MAC has been a regular host for Bella Hardy over the years and it pro...

The Remedy Club A quick check in the gig archives revealed it was only February and April last year when Hope in High Water and The Remedy Club respectively made their last visits to the Kitchen Garden. Maybe the crazy amount of gigs in the intervening period made these shows feel a lot longer ago. Roughly eighteen months since both duos last dropped into Kings Heath has seen developments move quickly to the point where one has a new album, and the other will not be too far behind on the evidence revealed during this appearance. This gig was part of a run of dates arranged in liaison with the Fish Records operation, key drivers in helping both acts get wider recognition around the UK. With the pre-gig promotion seemingly evenly balanced, it could have been a toss up to who took centre stage, but it eventually panned out that Hope in High Water opened proceedings with an extended fifty-minute support set. This left The Remedy Club with around half an hour extra following the oblig...

Three assertions from this evening: Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone are exclusively compatible vehicles for each others art; the sedative-induced brass element gives the sound a more jazz than soulful feel, and The Delines are immense at magnifying a heavily curated album style in a live setting. Every column inch and word of mouth praise accrued in 2019 on the back of releasing THE IMPERIAL at the beginning of the year came to fruition at this sold out Oxford gig. Sheer class oozed from the stage as we were firmly reminded that it may be late in the calender year but pure polished gems can appear at any time. On a personal front, The Delines experience began in June 2014 when they played the small room at the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham to around fifty people. This evening the audience must have been pushing to the unconfirmed four hundred mark such is the interest generated. Much of this has been the buzz around the new album, which acted as the main follow up to the 2014 debut COL...

Don’t judge art by the cover, the saying intimates, but maybe in this instance the image goes a long way to dictating the outcome of the latest album from Ags Connolly. The simplicity is striking from the front and back poses of our esteemed country troubadour sitting proudly and independently in the homely confines of his local. Exqusiitely profound and without a single air of pretence, WRONG AGAIN comes across as a singular aim of pursuing the holy grail of making music as close to an ideal as is possible. This album tramples over borders and any bow to consensus or evolution. Ags Connolly makes no attempt to be a pseudo- American or a Brit putting an Anglo slant on American music. There is very little deviation from a focussed goal and maybe, the realisation that we are getting close to reenacting a dream. People latch onto country music in distant lands for a multitude of reasons. If you seek some sort of escapist romanticism that steers your mind away from the norm then this re...

It has been a bit of a stop-go start getting into The Local Honeys. A last minute hitch delayed seeing them make their Birmingham debut at this same venue back in January. Likewise clashes didn't go in their favour when attending the SummerTyne Festival in the summer. It proved a case of good things come to those who wait when no hiccups impeded a Bonfire Night return to the Kitchen Garden and a chance to check out this highly rated touring duo out of eastern Kentucky. First good news for Linda Jean Stokley and Montana Hobbs was a vastly increased turnout from the last visit and a point where they were just a handful of ticket sales short from a 'house full' sign. This is a testimony to the interest generated over the year and perhaps word getting around that they deliver a truly memorable and engaging show. Having now been fully engrossed in a two-hour Local Honeys gig, there is full concurrence with this sentiment and the firm prediction that we are going to hear a lot ...

The eleventh month has been the longest wait in any calendar year to catch a Kim Lowings live performance since first discovering her while opening for Jess Morgan in Stourbridge back in 2013. Indeed, the stretch is even longer as the previous performance seen was way back in the summer of 2018 when she appeared on the main stage at Beardy Folk Festival with the full Greenwood band. It is not that she has been totally inactive in this interim sixteen month period, although we are in a 'between album phase' that hopefully will be snapped at some point in the not too distant future. In light of the gap, there was something refreshing about seeing the live show again, even if this evening's format was a stripped back set up playing in a duo with her dad Andrew. To some extent, this also had its own advantages as Kim herself implied that it is good to revisit how the songs were born and take this side of her music out on the road. So the stage was set for a return to the studio...

America may have its Mother Church; the UK just utilises the real thing. A rough finger count has St.Pancras Old Church as the sixth different holy place to see a gig in recent years, with no doubt a lengthy list of many others doing likewise up and down the country. This exchange of performing space does throw an extra dimension on the live music experience. Acoustics, ambience and atmosphere are frequently called out alongside a tendency for artists to fully test the surroundings by stepping away from the mic to strip song and music down to its purist form. One of my earliest memories of a country/folk/Americana touring artist performing in a church was the Good Lovelies singing a version of ' Hallelujah' in Ross-on-Wye. To bring things up to date in a similar setting but very different town, Carter Sampson closed this return to St, Pancras Old Church with a personal moving version of the film classic ' Moon River' , delivering an identical feeling to what occurred on...