TAMWORTH FOLK CLUB GUEST NIGHT REVIEW
June 2003

Welcome to the review of the proper guest night at The Gamecock, (see special review for May here to make sense of this!).
The first thing I noticed upon entering the auditorium was some unusual shaped instrument cases in the corner, more about these later. Now with June here and getting on for the longest day with sunlight streaming through the windows, the obvious thing to do was to call for the curtains to be closed, the thought being it would create a more intimate atmosphere, I think it was to hide the wrinkles of the performers.

After Steve's introduction, our own home grown Nigel Bullock and Dave Tigh took to the stage and swung straight in on an ecclesiastical theme with a rousing gospel song, to the delight of the audience. Nigel's jokes are always up to the mark, and this one was particularly good, ask Malcolm for the punch line. Nigel and Dave's harmonies fit extremely well together and the rendition of "Blink of an eyelid" was no exception. It was all to soon for their last song and those strange instruments were still under wraps in the corner.

What can one say about our main guest for the evening, well a great deal if you were to delve back into his musical past. Jez Lowe was borne in 1955 and came from an Irish background, and was brought up in County Durham. He was always interested in pop music, but soon was steering towards blues and folk. After visiting a local folk club in 1973 to hear Martin Carthy, he was playing a mixture of Dylan, traditional, contemporary and original material with a school friend Ged Foley, later of Patrick Street and The House Band.

Jez went solo at the end of the 70's and recorded four albums in the 1980's. These songs were about working class life in the North and his reputation was set upon the worlds folk stages over the next few years. It was not until 1990 that the backing group was to appear , and The Bad Pennies remain with him up to the present day.

He started up with a catchy number, "Latch Key Lover" and soon had us all singing the chorus, but as I discovered you cannot help joining in with all his numbers. Like "Fun without Fools", his next one followed by a Swiss reel had the audience tapping their feet, hands and practically anything that moved. You have to listen to Jez Lowe's words because they have specific meaning, as in "The Soda Man" and "Fancy Goods", the songs just kept on coming, and with the superb backing of Andy May on a multiple supply of instruments, Kate Bramley, a superb fiddle player, and Simon Haworth on base guitar, we were soon into the break.

As the night was extremely hot the extract fan was quickly brought into play to cool us all down, but as the break was over it was soon turned off in order to hear Dave and Nigel's second set.

Now those cover's came off the unlikely looking instruments, only to discover they were didgery doo's ( I hope the spelling is correct), we do not see many of these in Birchmore. Nigel's daughter Rachel joined the boy's and gave a wonderful authentic Aboriginal feel to the music to the delight of us all and received a rousing reception. Name another folk club where you can get so much variation in music. A great set from our local duo + one, more of the same in the future.

With Jez back on stage, and the lighting altered from snooker to full flood ( cost no object) we were soon into some of his well known songs, "Japs & English", "Durham Jail", some said he had stolen these from Steve Edkins, I know better, the night was over all too fast, and I am quickly running out of space, so another brilliant night, looking forward to the next.

RDC 2003