NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
Maggie Boyle with Frank
Kilkelly
Maggie Boyle with Frank Kilkelly
For sheer professional output of live music, it's hard to find anywhere in all of Tynedale that consistently matches the brilliant performances that regulars at The King's Head in Allendale take for granted.
Sometimes though it's easy to ignore how amazingly good the best performers are, when the standard of most shows there is so very high. It was a bit like that with Maggie Boyle, accompanied by Frank Kilkelly, last Friday evening.
Let's face it -- folk music has suffered from a perceived image of finger-in-the-ear verbose earnestness, which a public weaned only on a relentless beat and catchy melodies might find rather cloying. But that was then, and now, with traditional musicians making major running for top awards over the last three years in the music biz, it may well be that this particular genre has something meaningful to contribute to popular music, after all.
Maggie Boyle is a traditional singer of the first rank. And Frank is a renowned folk/jazz guitarist who's recorded with Brendan Power, the amazing blues harmonica player, besides appearing as guest guitarist with The Boys of the Lough. So the stage was set for an incredibly accomplished and stylish rendition of the best of the living tradition.
And even with incredibly long songs full of many words telling exquisitely refined stories and highly bloody and violent tales of love and intrigue, betrayal and shame -- even with these songs that tap into the heart strings of committed 'folkies' -- Maggie's voice and passionate commitment to communication shone through the erstwhile shackles of the idiom, and penetrated to assuage those dark recesses of pain that we might have thought unfathomable.
My favourite was 'Gweebarra Shore', the title track of her new CD, but there were heart throbs for everyone, from 'My Generous Lover' through 'Little Brother of My Heart' and 'Blackbird', and of course, the infamous 'Lord Gregory' was not left behind either. And how does she do those grace notes in the middle of the register? Whether it was on unexpected larks' trills from her flute, or a set of session tunes soloed by Frank on a guitar that sang clear tinkling melodies, the evening was a varied interchange of affection between a pair of performers and a rapt audience who lost their hearts to the music.
The best musicians for the best audience has always been a friendly pledge from the Northumbrian Music Nights group, and they fulfilled that promise in the company of Maggie & Frank, with great good friendly cheer.
