Allan Wilkison Our Man In The Venues
Broadcaster Mike Harding said recently that 2007 was in his opinion the best year for folk music ever. I'm not so sure about this. There's been an awful lot of water under the bridge since the beginnings of the folk revival and during that period, there have been some tremendously good years as well as equally bad ones. Nevertheless, 2007 has been a remarkable year for festival appearances, rigorous touring and folk club gigs, too numerous to mention and with so much variety to choose from but I have narrowed it down to three live performances in three distinct settings; the festival, the folk club and the concert hall. Remarkably, my choices for the best live shows of 2007 are 100% female, which is unusual as in previous years it's been exclusively all blokes!
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset's second album launch at this year's Cambridge Folk Festival was a particular highlight of the year. "The Bairns" came with critical success and the decision to launch the album at the festival was an inspired one. It was their year to be the darlings of the festival, much the same as it had been for The Equation in 1995 and The Waifs in 2003. This honour is bestowed upon un-expecting artists by the audience alone and no pre-gig hype could possibly be more effective than good old audience acceptance on the day. Their day was Saturday 28 July at noon, where they held their audience spellbound.
As far as folk club gigs go, you could've done a lot worse than to show up for Rosie Doonan's solo gig in November at the Regent in Doncaster. Coming from a good strong Northern folk lineage (her dad Mick Doonan and granddad John Doonan), Rosie cut her teeth singing somewhere in the background with Tarras and then venturing out into the big wide world of clubs and festivals with former partner Ben Murray before settling on a solo path. There are no pretensions with Rosie Doonan, what you see is what you get and what you hear both on record and live is simply beautiful.
The newcomer that set my switch to flicking was Devon Sproule at Lincoln's Drill Hall, followed by an immediate scoot over to the other side of the country to catch her once again at Manchester's RNCM, just in case I had dreamt it. We are talking pure 1950s throwback country-folk-western-swing-you-name-it-it's-in-there kinda gal, slightly cookie, deeply interesting. A must see for 2008 when she returns with husband and partner Paul Curreri.