Date: June 17th 2010
Reviewed by: Abbas Ali
Abbas Ali gets his folk on for a double whammy of his n' hers folksy pop, in the form of US songstress Lissie and Londoner Alan Pownall.
Once upon a time, men dominated the charts, and the occasional artist would help out a jobbing female singer/damsel in distress by giving her a support slot on his tour (that’s not a euphemism, ahem). Nowadays, with many a female vocalist on the hit parade, it takes the likes of Grammy winning Adele to take a shine to the soulful vocals of 24-year old Londoner Alan Pownall, and let him play on her last tour - leading to a deal with Mercury Records.
His brand of folk pop points my nose instantly towards his being an English version of Jack Johnson. It’s a fair comparison, but perhaps a bit lazy. He was once neighbours with Mumford & Sons, but where their nu-folk leanings are derived from this side of the Atlantic, there’s a distinctly stateside sound to his tuneful, vaudevillian pop songs.
It’s astonishing to note that Pownall’s discovery of his songwriting ability is relatively late. Songs like ‘Chasing Time’ would be impressive if written after many years of studying the craft. That he’s knocked out such numbers in the past year or two, after only learning the guitar 6 years ago, makes them all the more astonishing, displaying a strong gift for melody and storytelling that has been compared to the likes of the Kinks, or Paul McCartney’s solo efforts, and even Aqualung.
After making Radio 1’s Single of the Week with the aforementioned number back in April, at least half of tonight’s adoring audience are here for the male vocalist, on what is a joint headline with 70s-tinged singer songwriter Lissie. It’s a good pairing as both acts perform incredibly traditional pop music, with cross-generational appeal, in their own different ways.
Pownall ends with a surprising, acoustic, led cover of The Strokes’ ‘Someday’, before it’s time for guitar toting cohort Lissie to hit the stage with her humble 3-piece band. Tellingly, she starts with the Hank Williams cover 'Wedding Bells', wearing her Catholic, classic music tastes on her sleeve. Then she launches into ‘Little Lovin’ from her album, Catching A Tiger, and it’s like being transported back to Lauren Canyon, California in the 70s. The hippie music scene of the time produced acts such as Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and it is to artists such as these, and, notably Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac that music seems heavily indebted. No bad thing.
It should be noted that tonight is a roasting Summer's evening at Night and Day Cafe, one of those venues where artists get to see right into your eyes from the small, cramped, famous stage. “It’s hot as balls up here”, she says in her folksy US way, dabbling her forehead with a towel, the first of many times tonight. It’s when she hits current single ‘When I’m Alone’ that she hits familiar territory, gaining the biggest cheer of the night. It’s a song that does have “hit” written all over it.
Exchanging easy banter with the crowd, and talking about the Liverpool/Manchester divide, which comes up when competing factions try to get her attention, Lissie’s personal warmth and ease does come across. Later, she does plead with people to buy her record, and, after a great reception for her intriguing cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’, she even tells us how she used to play in Pizza Hut, and nobody listened. As she ends on album closer, gospel number ‘Oh Mississippi’, it strikes me that she does seem like an artist of the verge of huge stardom. But, having seen to many credible artists fall by the wayside over the years, it’s impossible for me to tell.
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