Loading

Robert Ellis

Venue: Liverpool Philharmonic
Town: Liverpool
Date: 1st March 2013
Website: http://www.robertellismusic.com/

Texan singer-songwriter Robert Ellis was the opening act for Richard Thompson tonight. I had originally planned just to mention him in passing in my review of the brilliant headliner but I was so impressed with Robert's performance that I came to the conclusion that he thoroughly deserved to have a separate review of his own, because he is clearly a major talent.

American Songwriter described Robert thus : "If this young Texan is the future of country, the future looks good". The Guardian said about him: "Gram Parsons is long dead, but those with a taste for LA country might sense the return of the Grievous Angel in this singer". So no pressure then! Actually, Robert lived up to the "buzz" about him. He manages to combine the sensibilities of an introspective folk singer with a real feel for good old-fashioned country music. His excellent recent album "Photographs" is a game of two halves [or two sides in the case of the attractive vinyl version of the album]. The A- side represents [in Robert's words] " a more folksy, dark side of the music while the B- side is a full band country sound" and a tribute to his heroes George Jones, Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard. Tonight, Robert's all too brief set comprised four songs from "Photographs" and two cracking new songs.

Robert opened with "Westbound Train", a song about breaking up and moving on without sorrow ["Another train'll be coming through and I'm gonna catch one too"]. This was followed by the joyous "Comin' Home", which describes a journey from Austin back home to Houston [ "the place where I belong"] to "see my little girl". Robert mentioned that he wrote the song on Casio keyboard on the passenger seat of his car, during the said journey! This song featured some fine country guitar picking and the deep Texan twang in his voice.

Next up was "Two Cans Of Paint" about setting up home together ["I'm glad to be startin' over with you"]. This song contains the highly original rhyming of "window" with "Nintendo", surely the first time this has been done!

The final song from "Photograph" was the outrageous [and hopefully not autobiographical] "No Fun" in which the protagonist, an angry redneck, tells his honey that if she ever decides to cheat on him, he will " poke out your eyes and stomp on your little feet". Not surprisingly, this song has provoked indignation amongst those who have failed to see the irony !

The two new songs were both excellent. "TV Song" concerns the influence that television had on Robert in his youth and how was happiest when he existed through his favourite tv shows, " For a couple of hours I got super powers". The other new song "Singalong" was even better. It's an extremely powerful song about growing up in the Bible Belt and how a child is told that "You can burn in hell for the rest of your days or choose to sing along". Chilling stuff!

Clearly, Robert Ellis is a gifted songwriter and I would certainly like to see him do a full show as a headliner. In the meantime, I recommend that you check out his album "Photographs".

Peter Cowley