Three Chords and the Truth UK

  www.theagilmore.net Twelve months ago Thea Gilmore ripped open the package of a new phase in the creative atmosphere of the Midland Arts Centre to stunning effect. With that new phase firmly embedded a return was a no brainer as another tour was scheduled to launch the post-Afterlight stage of a career now stretching twenty-three years. The solo format has become de facto with the presence of guitars, keys and an evolving loop machine providing the comfort blanket of sound. Throw in a passion for words plus vocals blending the blunt and beautiful, and what rises is a foremost contemporary singer-songwriter forever evading those aiming to pigeon hole. For an hour and a quarter this evening, Thea Gilmore treated a Birmingham audience to a celebratory compact show packaging the past, present and future in a mist of musical marvel.  Afterlight's seismic introduction last year is still there, yet quite subtly included. The main set opens and closes in the same vein of the album w...

  www.elliegowersmusic.com From Beardy bubbles to sold out signs, it has been a crazy couple of years in the music life of Warwickshire-based folk musician Ellie Gowers. The first of these markers is a little niche and personal, but the second was enabled by those cramming the Kitchen Garden to celebrate a landmark show on the debut album launch tour. While Birmingham may not be quite the hometown show, it is increasingly becoming a fertile ground to increase a fanbase, and subsequently more and more are tuning into the wide reaching talents of an exceptional performer. Throughout the two sets this evening, Ellie put her confident and assured demeanour on full show to strip bear a passion and aptitude for curating a special song that etches a deeper mark on the local folk music landscape.  For a little preliminary context, Beardy bubbles refers to the miraculous socially distanced festival held in September 2020. From those first gently strummed chords at Beardy Folk festival ...

  www.jillandrews.com Success for artists striking out in new territories as live acts requires organic growth or instant impact. The former can only occur over time, but if the latter is in place from day one then the chances of succeeding are looking good. The best assessment of seeing Jill Andrews for the first time is to liken her traits to those of three fellow Nashville- based artists adept at ensuring their music travels with acclaim. The poise of Erin Rae, the song craft of Caroline Spence and the vocal air of Gretchen Peters all came to mind as the latest US singer-songwriter export parading on the fault lines between country, folk and Americana took to the stage for a mesmerising hour and a quarter during the Birmingham date of an inaugural UK tour. It doesn't require too much research to uncover the pedigree of Jill Andrews back home with a recording catalogue stretching over eighteen years in numerous formats and guises. The degree that pedigree was channelled into a po...

www.samlewistunes.com

www.michaelwestonking.com A balmy night at the end of June or a dreary rainy one at the beginning of November? Covid stepped in to determine the latter and who could argue that a darker background wasn't a more appropriate setting to showcase an album shining a light on life's darker corners. THE STRUGGLE broadly announces its arrival from a title landing the first blow and it evolves into a piece of recorded art deserving a platform for dissection. When you have waited a decade to turn the clocks back to a more solo focussed period of a career, maximising its effect is high on the agenda. Michael Weston King felt the presence of Clovis Phillips is the only just way of truly opening the pages of THE STRUGGLE and that an old favourite venue in the Kitchen Garden was an ideal place to ease out the contents of a record ripened by acute ears. Circumnavigating suburban Birmingham's flooded roads for an hour did briefly yearn for sunny June, but the prize of candid exposure ebbed...