Live
In The Living Room has taken to the road and is doing a grand
tour of Pizza Express restaurants around the country – well, why wouldn’t
you? And having seen the line-up of
artistes… why wouldn’t you? Good Friday
evening it was the turn of Birmingham’s Brindley Place to play host to quite
the collection of performers.
A lovely upstairs room (with attentive waiter) first saw
the opening songwriter’s round of Jessie
Desai – a young female singer songwriter, Andy Hughes who had a very authentic sounding Country voice – as well
as a splendid hat/shirt/boots combo, and Sam
Shemmell whose looks utterly belied the voice that emerged from him – describing
it with mere words can’t do it justice, so think of the deep voices of the 70s
C&W superstars…Sam puts it down to his operatic beginnings, but whatever it
is, it is worth hearing!
All three grew more comfortable as the show went on, with
three songs each to warm up the evening.
Next up – Sam Coe
and the Long Shadows. This is
actually who I came to see (sorry Simon!) as I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of
seeing Sam perform live. Sam – and her band – certainly didn’t disappoint. From
their first song, Moving On, to their
last they performed with constant energy - in fact I’m not sure that they would
be capable of playing a song all the way through without going a little
crazy! When a band are clearly having
fun, that infects the audience, even if we were only chair dancing! Sam herself doesn’t have what might be called
a classic country voice, she has a voice that was meant to be used for rocking performances,
and she uses it for exactly that! Also,
any band that features a Dobro and a Hammond organ are always going to grab my
attention!
You don’t always get the chance to see artistes play with
their full band as so many play acoustic sets, songwriter rounds etc so it was
a real treat to see Simon James play
with his band, the Deep River Pilots
– leading to a very bearded stage (with one notable exception) The addition of drums, organ, guitars and a
fiddler (without a beard!) really complements and enhances Simon’s voice without
masking it as a full band could do. Simon
James has a great style of his own which I have written about before, but as
audience member Sally Rea Morris of Gasoline and Matches commented to me, Simon
sounds even more confident when accompanied by his band. Sam Coe joined him for a rendition of Oh Honey, and with both acts being
signed to Ginger Dog Records there is some great music on the way to us!
James from Live In The Living Room has done us a great
favour by bringing all of these acts out on the road whilst also raising money
for some very deserving charities, and I look forward to seeing the audiences
grow as the word spreads!
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