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Don Gallardo with Stuart Bond and Scott Poley

Venue: Grateful Fred's Cafe Session
Town: Formby
Date: 14/7/14
Website: http://www.dongallardo.com/

We up here on the north-west coast are indeed fortunate. Why? Because we don't have to travel across the Pond to see the cream of American singer-songwriters as Grateful Fred brings them right here to our doorstep at the Cafe d'Art in Formby. In recent months we have had performances by such superb artists as Peter Mulvey, Charlie Roth [with Mike Harding], Nels Andrews, "Mean"Mary James, Dubl Handi and Kim Richey [with Gareth Dunlop].

To that illustrious list we can add the name of Don Gallardo, one of Nashville's finest songwriters, who appeared tonight accompanied by guitarist/mandolinist /harmony vocalist Stuart Bond, who is a member of Don's regular band "how far west".

As an added bonus, Don and Stuart were joined onstage by highly-respected British multi-instrumentalist/producer Scott Poley on dobro. As well as being a much in-demand session musician [ for example, he plays on the excellent new album by Cherry Ghost "Herd Runners"], Scott has toured with artists such as Cara Luft and Kevin Montgomery, as well as with Don.

Don Gallardo is a prolific songwriter, having had his songs featured in films and television programmes such as "Jolene", "Bad Grandpa", "The Vampire Diaries" and ABC's "Nashville"[as did our recent guest Kim Richey].

Don's most recent studio album is "The Art of Troublesome Times", which was produced by Neilson Hubbard [something else that Don has in common with Kim Richey]. To coincide with this tour Don and Stuart have released a "live acoustic sessions" album called "The Sea and The Land"[ which, incidentally, has on its cover a photograph of the beach at Witterings in West Sussex, a place where I spend many happy summer holidays in my childhood, but I digress].

The highly talented trio of Don, Stuart and Scott began their first set with a selection of songs from "The Art of Troublesome Times", including "Hey Julia", "Sinking Ships" and "One of These Days", which is about having to play cover songs to make a living, before launching into some brand new songs which are as yet unrecorded. These included "The Way It Is" and "North Dakota Blues", which is an outlaw song that Don wrote whilst under the influence of Kris Kristofferson and which featured a frenetic guitar solo from Stuart.

Another excellent new song of Don's was "Pearls" about the life of the wife of a musician -"One thing's for sure, I never promised you pearls, darlin'".

One of Don's best-known songs is "Memphis Train", which featured in the 2011 film "Jolene", which starred Jessica Chastain. Don set out to write the archetypal train song and clearly achieved his aim with this "humdinger" of a song which featured blistering solos from Scott on dobro and Stuart on guitar.

After the interval, Don returned to play a short solo set comprising three "romantic" songs, "Paper Heart", "I Get Lost [Every Moment With You]" [about proposing to his wife] and "The Perfect Day", which appears on the new "live" album.

Also from "The Sea and The Land" were "Kitchen" [a quirky song about being naughty in, you've guessed it, the kitchen] and "Front Door" ["If you open your heart, I'll open up my front door"].

The new live album contains a countryfied version of "Nowhere Man" by The Beatles and, this being Liverpool, how could Don not sing it here ? Well he did and it was a cracking version, with great interplay between Scott on dobro and Stuart on guitar.

Whilst on the subject of cover songs, Don, Stuart and Scott played a blistering version of "White Freightliner Blues" by the Late Great Townes Van Zandt and a superb rendition of "Long Black Veil" by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin [which has been recorded by many, including Johnny Cash [at Folsom Prison], The Band and Bruce Springsteen].

For an encore, Don sang his beautiful ballad "Rosalie", to wrap another great Grateful Fred's Cafe Session.

Peter Cowley