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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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JIM WHITE
The Union Chapel, London April 30th
2009 |
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Talking
of valued recommendations, one of the nicest things
about music is sharing; same goes for malt whisky,
I suppose. But as is the case with whisky, sometimes
it’s hard to call: you have to pick the right
whisky for the right person. The bohemian experimentalist
will explore and try, and enjoy, anything; often
just the experience of something novel or different
is enough. |
| Others
are more conservative. And as there’s some
degree of personal exposure in doing this –
getting it right can strengthen a relationship,
getting it wrong quite the reverse - one has to
tread carefully. But when you do get it right, it’s
delightful. Hence my delight that our fellow fish
and chipsters at the packed Union Chapel for Jim
White (it’s Big Bobby and Little
Claire) have smiles all over their faces only minutes
into the gig, and are no less beaming when we wave
them goodnight a couple of hours later. |
| I’m
not surprised, since this show, part of a short
European tour, scored very highly on the Jimometer. |
|
“It’s
sort of quiet in here. That’s how it was last
night in Norway, ‘till I told them how happy
I was to be in Sweden”. Relaxed and very much
at ease, White was accompanied by Patrick
Hargon, who jived and joked and made his customised
Telecaster positively sing in the rafters of this
old church, and Lisa Hargon Smith (yes, they are
related) on bass.Mr White is about to make another
album, so this is his last appearance in the UK
for a little while, and a useful opportunity to
try out material on a friendly (that’s an
understatement, I should say ‘adoring’)
crowd. |
| “I
don’t want to keep on doing the same old stuff,
I could have been Phil Collins to do that”.
And there are some previously untold stories too.
Of the new songs ‘Where would I be’,
with some clever looped harmonica, led the Photographer
to write in my little black book – ‘now
this should be a No 1’. ‘The way of
love’ was written as a memory of a chance
meeting and the most innocent of kisses with a prostitute
on a beach in Florida, where White, then a fundamentalist
Christian, once worked as a sun-tan lotion salesman
(could it be anything other than a Jim White song?).
‘Hick hop’ sort of speaks for itself,
and ‘The trials of Job’ was, given the
title of the song, a surprisingly up-tempo piece,
almost in a Jonathan Richman rock and roll style.
Altogether some encouraging stuff that bodes well
for the next record. |
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| White
began the set with a version of ‘Fireworks
factory’, originally recorded with Johnny
Dowd and Hellwood and, from his back catalogue
‘A perfect day to chase tornados’, which
he introduced with a new story, albeit set on the
same beach as the customary anecdote. This latest
tale, of an abortive rescue attempt, was a metaphor
for life’s relentless quest for the unattainable,
or something like that. He played ‘The wound
that never heals’, possibly his most disturbing
song, about a sexually-abused woman turned serial
killer and the very pretty ‘Still waters’
and ‘Static on the radio’. Add the more
light-hearted ‘If Jesus drove a motor home’
(“We like playing this song but people keep
telling us they don’t like it”), and
from his last album, ‘Turquoise house’,
which gave Hargon a chance to run through a small
manual of classic Country and Western riffs. White
ended the show with a solo performance of ‘Bluebird’,
the lovely song written for his daughter. A perfect
way to finish. - Nick Morgan (photographs by
Kate) |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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