Thanks to the perseverance and cheek of my long time ex-school buddy and his wife, the sleepy backwater of Biddulph (Town of my birth) played host to the Carrie Rodriguez/Linda McLean double bill. Speaking before the show, Carrie and the two lads in the band are delighted to be staying somewhere that's not an identikit hotel and are getting fed damn good food. We know how to look after you in Biddulph. (Robbie - hint hint!) The soundcheck reveals, to these ears, a strong Daniel Lanois element to Carrie's sound. Freed from the duo with Chip Taylor, she's definitely finding her own identity. Support Linda McLean, from Toronto (Duvi?) turns up slightly late, after having got lost in Macclesfield. She's a literate, funny singer-songwriter who later gets a warm response from an over capacity crowd for her set. She even takes on Leonard Cohen and does a good job. We'd warned Carrie that this wouldn't be a mosh-pit crowd (unlike the Cluny, where she'd played a few days before - Robbie - bring your spandex) but that it would be appreciative and knowledgeable, and indeed it was. Two 45+ minute sets, well-paced and varied, saw this emerge as one of the best gigs I'd seen this year (In the UK. The Continental Club is a league of its own. Earl "Pool" Ball played Carrie's wedding by the way) I digress - a very healthy sign is that CR doesn't rely much on the duet songs that she did with Chip Taylor - she is building her own quite eclectic repertoire of folk songs, country and psychedelic fiddle-jazz quite well, thank you. A 2nd stunning encore of Merle Haggard's "Today I started loving you again" caps it all off and everyone forms an orderly queue to buy the CDs and gush, effusively about how good it was. And as the photographer and website bloke for http://www.biddulphupinarms.com I get in free and get to take photos without any hassle. Most excellent.
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