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Hannah Aldridge + The Goat Roper Rodeo Band

Venue: Grateful Fred's
Town: Southport
Date: 05/03/14
Website: http://hannah-aldridge.com

In the same week as BBC4 showed Greg Camalier's superb [and highly recommended] documentary film "Muscle Shoals" which tells the story of the "Small Town With A Big Sound",the Grateful Fred's audience was privileged to witness a most impressive performance by Hannah Aldridge, a singer-songwriter who grew up in that very town. I will return to Hannah's electrifying performance later on in this review.

As usual, the evening began with the Grateful Fred's House Band who get better and better with each show. The vocal harmonies of Karine,Les and Colin create a West Coast, Sunshine-Pop feel, particularly on songs like "Never Alive" [by I See Hawks In LA] and "Lady of the Harbour" [by Brother Sun] whilst the guitar explorations of Fretful Ged add a psychedelic twist. A fine way to start what was an evening of excellent music.

I have been wanting to see The Goat Roper Rodeo Band for some time, having heard great things about this trio from North Wales. I was not disappointed, in fact I was more than impressed with their "Cosmic Country Blues" style of music which to me sounds like The Everly Brothers fronted by Gram Parsons. The Goat Ropers create a fabulous sound with just two acoustic guitars and an upright bass but it's their vocal harmonies which give them their unique appeal. Like the Everly Brothers, they seem to employ a form of telepathy in the way they harmonise. They are no slouches in the songwriting department, either with particular standouts being the atmospheric "Lay Me Down Joanna", the bluesy "Rhythm of Love" and the uptempo "Catch Me if You Can". The Ropers finished their excellent set with a cover of Gillian Welch's "Red Clay Halo", a song that suits them perfectly. If you haven't seen the Goat Ropers, I would recommend that you "catch them if you can".

And so to the headliner, Hannah Aldridge. If anyone was destined to have a career in music it was Hannah. As mentioned above, Hannah grew up in Muscle Shoals where some of the greatest recordings of the 1960's and 1970's were rolled out in the studios there [FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio]. I'm referring to classics by Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, The Rolling Stones, Traffic and Paul Simon [to name but a very few]. Furthermore, Hannah is the daughter of Walt Aldridge, a prolific Nashville songwriter who has written literally dozens of hit Country songs, as well as being a record producer and musician [he sang lead vocals in the successful Country band The Shooters]. Hannah has clearly inherited her father's compositional talents as she is a formidable songwriter herself.

Hannah has an imposing stage presence and her voice reflects her Muscle Shoals heritage in that it blends Country twang with Rhythm and Blues [Muscle Shoals lies geographically and musically between Nashville and Memphis].

Hannah revealed that "I don't specialise in happy songs" and she was true to her word. Her songs cover subjects like murder, imprisonment,slavery and revenge but with a great deal of intensity and feeling. She is a natural storyteller. For example, "Parchman" tells the story of a woman who is on Death Row in that [in]famous prison, having killed her violent husband and who is "waiting for my turn to feel that needle burn".The prisoner has no regrets about what she has done and accepts her fate in what is an extremely powerful song. Another excellent story-song is set at the time of the Civil War and relates the tale of a slave who becomes the mistress of the plantation owner and who is "digging my own grave". This was another intensely powerful performance from Hannah.

Hannah also writes about relationships , as in the very sad "Lie Like You Love Me" ["You can hate me tomorrow"] and "Old Ghost" ["There you sleeping with that old ghost again"]. On "Black and White", Hannah looks back at her youth when things were simpler and she prays for her own son.

Hannah finished her set with the climactic and rather scary "Howling Bones" in which she extracts revenge on a former lover [ check out the slightly disturbing video on Hannah's website in which she smashes up said ex-lover's property with a baseball bat !]. Powerful stuff.

Hannah will be touring the UK again in the summer to promote her new album "Razor Wire" from which tonight's set was drawn and I would certainly recommend seeing her live as she is a rare talent both as a songwriter and as a performer. Just don't expect "happy songs"!

Peter Cowley