Macwood Fleet: Live in 2013: Blair Dunlop Trio

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Live in 2013: Blair Dunlop Trio

Live at The Greyhound Inn, Llanrhidian, Gower, Swansea

November 17 2013

The album that has been the nearest to my music playing devices in 2013 has been Blight & Blossom by Blair Dunlop.

I caught on to the album in January and have been playing it almost every week. Released late last year, it followed a couple of EP releases that introduced Blair onto the music scene.

I have talked about the album in the Albums of 2013 section http://macwoodfleet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/albums-of-2013-blair-dunlop-blight.html

so let's get straight to the live show.

I've waited all year for Blair to come down to South Wales to play a gig and I have to say that the wait was worth it. At the moment Blair is recording his second album and he can now showcase several of the new songs in his live shows. The gig was split into two 50 minute sections and covered several songs from his debut release, traditional songs as well as new material and a couple of unexpected covers by contemporary artists. Blair was joined by Jake on Keyboards and Angharad on Fiddle which make up The Blair Dunlop Trio.

Blair showed just what a brilliant and vibrant young guitar player he is. He stated that he was clearly influenced by the great folk guitarist Nic Jones but I can also detect the other Nick - Nick Drake, in his

playing.

Blair was well supported by Angharad & Jake, who give a new dimension to the songs and will also be appearing on Blair's new album.

The new songs bode well for the second album and on first hearing, the songs earmarked for the second album are every bit as good as the ones on Blight & Blossom. Talking to Blair during the halftime break, he hoped the album would be ready by the end of spring.

Blair mentioned his parents during the show and even sang a song by his dad, Ashley Hutchings, called The Song of Two Bridges. He also played a superb version of the Nic Jones interpretation of the classic Canadee I O Tab.