Gig Review
JC & Angelina Grimshaw
Saturday, 19th April 2008:
I avoid Saturday nights in front of the television set like a highwayman keeping out of Dorchester when Judge Jeffrey's was sitting. Jeffrey's sour face poured scorn down on me as I walked up Dorchester high street. The pub was empty and my mind was on other things. For one Angelina Grimshaw giving swagger to some old Beale Street blues: "Lordy lordy, good judge don’t send me to the electric chair ..."
Not even Judge Jeffrey's could have stopped me being in Dorchester tonight, Ragamuffin Brian and Sue had driven me down on the trail of my diamond Wight island's treasure houses, JC and Angelina Grimshaw. They are my antidote to the bland diet of performing circuses propping up brain dead tv and phone-in cash cows that leave Dick Turpin's escapades in the dirt.
I am like Tennyson's Enoch Arden cast away from the diamond but perfectly placed to come to Dorchester tonight. Not even the misty rain and cold winds on the hills of the Dorset landscape could deter me nor Ragamuffin Brian or Sue.
JC and Angelina are performing for the Dorset Blues Society tonight in an old school house with the bell still set high on the roof. I haven't set foot in the place and I know this is going to be special. I can just sense it in the air. Then I've been to a fair few Grimshaw gigs over the years in the smugglers pub and haunts of bohemians on my diamond Wight island and further afield. Places where stories and songs are shared amongst communities are to me as important as the performances themselves. If I don’t feel right about a place I become unsettled. Last night I felt right at home.
The doors to this former old school (now the Dorchester Arts Centre) were open at 7.30 for beer and reflection and sometime before eight the doors into the concert area were open and we filter into this beautiful little setting. One of the volunteers has given a perfect description of these evenings as "up close and personal", a priceless description.
The Dorset Blues Society's reputation is built on this solid foundation.
Note: Click thumbnails to view full images.
Photo credits: Mike Plumbley.
... continued
Tom doesn't waste much time getting JC and Angelina up onto the stage. Last week I sat in the old stone floor Platform Tavern down near Southampton Quay and my ukulele mentor Martin Kennard meeting the Grimshaws for the first time needed smelling salts after the second number. Tonight brother and sister conjured up some more magic right out of the ether. Somewheres I’ll paste up a set list (see below). This evening is preserved, captured on a mini disc laid on my lap. Listening to it may give you some notion of what went down. The best plan though is to make a Grimshaw gig because they uncurl this kind of magic all over the place.
Saturday night it was the classic mixture of songs collected from old blues, hula and jazz and country gramophone records, a set littered with their belting original songs. JC in cracking form on guitar, harp, dobro and mandolin. I imagine Blind Willie McTell and Django stopping their conversation to listen to JC Grimshaw. And Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith beaming big time at Angelina Grimshaw's renditions of those dusky old classics. After a stunning bottleneck rendition of their original Dance When You're Living with the voices of brother and sister mixed in the glass like nine raisins with gin they shook the timbers with their encore Old Joe Clark. It rang like that old school bell above us and left me breathless. Then to top it all Angelina sang a peach of a closer, The Very Thought of You with JC coaxing priceless chords and licks out of a big ol' jazz guitar.
All this is true, even bits I made up. You can hear the show soon on Ragamuffin Radio. I have one last thing to say, a big thank you to the Grimshaws for bringing me down this road misty wet with rain to such a fantastic place for music. And a great thank you to the Dorset Blues Society for their commitment to the real stuff. I’m sure going to come to a Dorset Blues Society night again. "Up close and personal" just like the man said, just the way I like it. Thank you.
First Set: Going Away; Sweet Lord; Blue Railroad Train; Hesitation Blues; Far From Me; Fish Going to Swim?; Crazy Blues; There Ain’t Nothing Round Here; SOS; Statesboro Blues; Corn Mill Broke Down; Old Jack Lightening. Second Set: Grass skirt Hawaiian tune by Solkay Bright; Baby Won’t You Please Come Home; Weatherman; Show Some Kindness; Hurry Home Blues; Gladston; Mountain Hollerin’; Fire Burning Bright; Jealous Hearted Me; Hey Hey; Broken Hearted Blues; I Can’t Be Satisfied; Dance When You’re Living. Encores: Old Joe Clark; The Very Thought Of You.
Review by Mike Plumbley of: Ragamuffin Radio. Reproduced with kind permission.
© Ragamuffin Radio.
19 April 2008.
NB: Mike Plumbley is also the co-author of the self-published Isle of Wight Rock: A Music Anthology (Isle of Wight Rock Archives, Palmer's Forge, Newport Road, Niton, Isle of Wight, U.K.). If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can reach him via his website for further details: Ragamuffin Radio.
