photo by Ian Thomas, with thanks
I’ve been plugging and blogging about singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore for far too long. My friend Andrew (who introduced me to her music in the first place on one of his special cassettes) reckons I even got a credit on the selected cd ‘Recorded Delivery’ , though I think it might be a different ‘Mike’.
If he’s right, then I’m dead chuffed.
A few weeks back our local band of Theaphiles ( myself, Ian and Andrew) attended her gig at the intimate, if a bit sweaty converted chapel and pizza venue Acapela in Pentyrch, which she decided not to try and pronounce. It seemed to me like her arrival centre stage after too long in the wings.
Dylan wanes, Waits has disappeared, Tom Russell’s equally neglected and our own Meic Stevens continues to awkwardly insist on singing in his native tongue, which relegates him in the eyes of the Anglo-centric media.
The gig at Acapela – where a congregation of avid fans gathered – highlighted one of her best ever albums, the latest ‘Small World Turning’ ; even though the predecessor ‘The Counterweight’ was rightly lauded.
‘This is why I liked her in the first place’ commented Andrew, though she’s never lost it through the years. Ian was open-mouthed, in awe.
The concert had it all : Thea in resounding voice backed by husband and producer Nigel Stonier and multi-instrumentalist Matt Owens, who was also support act.
Many songs from the new album were featured like ‘Cutteslowe Walls’ which describes an area in her native Oxford where the walls separated rich and poor –
‘She recalls all kind of trouble
If she played in the shadow of the Cutteslowe walls’
This apt description is brought home in the final verse with references to food banks and the homeless.
‘The Revisionist’, like ‘Glory’ and ‘Blowback’ are far more cutting , dark songs, which show that, despite her ever-catchy tunes, Thea can go for the jugular when it comes to the hypocrisy and right-wing populism of today.
‘Throwing hatred like confetti
Drinking populism neat’
In ‘Blowback’ the character has wide appeal on the media, yet –
‘He sows those coins into the earth
And fences off his land’
If you ever wondered what kind of songs the Bob Dylan of ‘Hard Rain’ would be writing today, then here’s your answer.
She asks the audience ‘Who needs Boris Johnson?’ to which one man replies ‘I do!’ ( my mate Andrew responds with ‘Fuck off!’).
Her song for her talkative and creative son, ‘Don’t Dim Your Lights for Anyone’ touches anyone whose children do not fit readily into a system which craves bland obedience. It’s an anthem for the kind of young, rebellious spirits who have taken the lead in protests against global warming –
‘Some trust in God
Some just pass through,
But me my love
I trust in you’
Interspersed between these wonderful songs from ‘Small World Turning’ were a series of her classics such as ‘Old Soul’ , ‘This Girl’ and ‘Your Voice’, the latter in praise of democracy despite the appalling rise of Farage recently.
Nigel Stonier (‘ a bad time to be called Nigel’ quipped Thea) gave us the remarkable back-story of the album and how it had been rejected by three record companies before they decided to go it alone and Thea ‘became a label’.
It actually rose to 16 in the charts in the first fortnight of release and number 1 in the Americana charts here. This is quite odd as , apart from ‘The Loading Game’, the influence of Irish folk is stronger.
She ended a captivating concert with ‘Karr’s Lament’, such a subtly descriptive song –
‘ And the smell of the earth
Where the storm has broken’
A sadly joyful one, with a chorus to echo within like the sound of waves at night in a coastal town.
To claim that Thea has now been acknowledged and recognised may be a little premature ;in the past, her songs ‘ That’ll be Christmas’ and ‘London’ ( with Sandy Denny’s words) had a lot of radio airplay.
Yet this album , more than any other, speaks about our troubled times without any ranty, shouty directness, which can be so off-putting.
If Thea were just a great lyricist then the road would be laid. As it is, she has the music, voice and musicians to match.
The road rises up ahead – ‘I’ll still be using my voice’ she sings.
It would be heartening to think that many will tread, upward and onward, to a place of rare sights, to the summit.
COMMON, EXTRAORDINARY
I was on my way downhill
Another day’s trudge to drudgery
On a dark winter morning
With the black hole and its tip
Looming across the valley.
Under the road bridge
Where pigeons nest in gaps
And the traffic’s groans and sighs
Vibrate above my head ;
Black cat graffiti silhouette.
Suddenly, on a street-lamp
A blackbird sings into the nowness
Duped by the brightness
Yet still such a tune
I could only stop and listen.
No times to be met,
No appointments or forms :
A common bird so extraordinary
That past and future ceased,
One hand clapping, my applause.
RSS Feed
