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Long Dark
Night (Demos and Rarities 1971 - 2011)
Where Dead
Voices Gather
Do That
Again
Wrong Joke
Again (Red Pump Special)
Brand New
Heartache (The Everly Brothers)
I'm Walkin
Here (new album 2014)
Your Clear
White Light (Lindisfarne).
The Sketcher
on the Last Train
Out of Your
Sight
More than I
can say
The welcoming
club was packed out with people standing at the sides - the club is often
filled with addicted folkies like myself(!) and with relaxed friendly chat. The last
time I saw Rab here the crowd was half this size perhaps as it was the month
before Christmas. I usually pick gigs of artists I particularly enjoy.
In 2013
Noakes released a 40th anniversary edition of his Red Pump Special album.
He told us that the album was first recorded in Nashville with a cracking squad and somebody
in the room had worked with Hank Williams.
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Noakes sang
4 excellent cover songs choices – Brand New Heartache (The Everly
Brothers?), Your Clear White Light (Alan
Hall of Lindisfarne), Guessing Kitchen
Porter (Michael Marra) and O The Wind
and the Rain (Percy's Song) - Rab likes juxtapositions in songs and this
one was a murder ballad sung to a sweet guitar waltz.
Rab sings songs
of different eras with small histories and moods and stories and like fine wine
gets better over time... I dont' wish to pick out favourites as every song has
something special. He said the mark of a good song was if it can
age with you.
One song was
about being able to recognise a window of opportunity when it opens...., and I
wondered about his lost times when he left Stealers Wheel with Gerry Rafferty
and his slot on the BBCs Old Grey Whistle test. He told the stories behind his songs and
musical journeys and his songs range from harder hitting questions to subtler
optimisms.
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Rab called
his style 21st century skiffle - in the style of Guthrie or Leadbelly before
the folk revival and also a wee bit Buddy Holly. Noakes
crosses the generations, as he looks and sounds both of now and of those
fifties folk songs. .
I can
understand that artists like to perform their newer material while I know also that
fans would wish to hear some of his older favourites such as Branch or
Clear day - perhaps the audience might sing the backing vocals!
II
Don't' Act
Like your Heart Isn't' hard
Travelling
Light
Jackson
Greyhound
Guessing
Kitchen Porter (Michael Marra)
It happened
All the Same
O The Wind
and the Rain (Percy's Song)
Time
Slipping Away
Don't say
Money Doesn't' MatterRab Noakes PHOTOS - http://pkimage.co.uk/rabnoakes
Rob Noakes -
with
Where Dead Voices Gather' - still relevant and even better than his
younger days....
