- Willy in Oswestry
 Willy and his band played two great
gigs at the Walls Restaurant in Oswestry last weekend. The packed
houses enjoyed full sets with Willy, firstly reading from Wrong
Boy, and then joined by the full band to play a selection
of Willy's compositions from his new album HOOVERING THE MOON.
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- Both evenings were filmed
and recorded for possible release later in the year.
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- The band composed some of
the musicians who contributed to the new album. Andy Roberts
(guitar & vocals) led the band, ably assisted by Tim Firth
(piano & vocals), Mark Griffiths (bass & vocals), Paul
Allen (drums), Iain Matthews (vocals & guitar), Dorie Jackson
(vocals), Loretto Murray (vocals) and Phil Beaumont (percussion).
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- The new album, which is currently
on limited release, is now available for sale - direct from
this web site - see SHOPPING
PAGE.
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- Russell on song with a gift for comic
timing
- NOT since Noel Coward performed
for London's café society has a British playwright dared
to sing in front of a paying audience.
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- But on Saturday night, in
Oswestry's The Walls restaurant, we had two, Liverpool's Willy
Russell and Cheshire's Tim Firth. This was not a just-having-fun
occasion but the real thing with a big band and the pair singing
their own songs to great success. Russell - who wrote the words
and music for his musical Blood Brothers - proved he can pen
non-show tunes as well with a good selection from his recently
recorded CD Hoovering The Moon.
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- First Russell showed a Dickensian
propensity for reading his own work with a very funny rendition
of a chapter from his novel The Wrong Boy. He has a gift for
comic timing, accents and full-blooded delivery. But it was his
ability to play guitar and sing his own clever, often humorous
songs which really impressed. Performed live, they have even
more impact than they do on his recording. Musical director and
guitarist Andy Roberts had lined up a sparkling nine-piece band,
strong enough to have Ian Matthews of Matthews Southern Comfort
doing duties as a backing singer.
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- Inspired by a poem from one
of Russell's great friends, the late Adrian Henri, Russell opened
with Glad Town, a celebration of Liverpool life: "There's
something in the air/Walking down Lime Street tonight,"
he sang, a number in which the vocal harmonies really pushed
the song forward. In Pink Lambrusco, he managed to rhyme Lambrusco
with Tesco, Dirty Little Habit was a furious up-tempo number
with an angry edge, Mr King a sad song about a missed assignation
and She Give Me another Henri-influenced number listing emotional
things a girl had supplied.
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- Tim Firth - writer of the
comedy Neville's Island seen recently at the Liverpool Playhouse
and the new film Calendar Girls - played keyboards and displayed
his own singer/songwriter skills. He has a sense of humour as
a song about growing old The Same Thing Twice proved but most
of his numbers tended towards the love ballad, declaimed with
emotion and played with great subtlety.
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- The two-hour non-stop show
hardly stopped, a broken guitar string notwithstanding. Both
writers can play with words as did Noel Coward, but there any
resemblance ends. Coward never backed his lyrics with heavy rock
sounds, conga drums and guitar solos. And Russell's lyrics -
and to some extent Firth's - had more to do with the nitty-gritty
of contemporary living than Coward's ever did.
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- This week the writers and
their band perform one last time at the Galway Festival. Hopefully,
it won't mark the end of what as an entertaining experience.
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- PHILIP KEY
- The Walls Restaurant, Oswestry,
July 21 2003
- Daily Post
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