As you may have noticed the world has more or less abandoned business as usual and live gigs in particular. We've cancelled all our dates for Music at the Pottery and the Writers Round at The Star in Guildford. Festivals are tumbling, basically all live gigs are on hold until happier times. So, in the absence of any genuinely live music, I thought I'd put together a fantasy open mic with live performance video from all my favourite players; past and present, famous and shall we say pre-famous, courtesy of YouTube.
First up is A Case Of You from Joni Mitchell, my favourite song of hers. It was from the album Blue which came out in 1971 at exactly the time I had my own heart properly broken for the first time so it evoked a good deal of empathy in me. This unceremonious dumping by the girl of my dreams was the reason I became a songwriter in the first place and the pain of it still informs my heartbreak songs today.
Eva Perrin Fontana is an astonishingly good local singer songwriter. She's recorded two new songs for my musical project and I'm absolutely thrilled with them. This is a live version of her song The Colour Of Your Ink from Candle Session at Ben's Collectors Records in Guildford in February 2017.
It's no surprise that James Taylor appears at my fantasy open mic. This particular track is You Can Close Your Eyes recorded with the former Mrs Taylor. He looks terrible, I think this was pre-rehab, but the song sounds great and quintessentially JT.
Keith Bayley is a similar creature to my mate Nick. That's to say he makes his living as a pro composer/musician in the commercial sector; adverts, TV theme tunes and the like but he's also a fabulous singer songwriter. This is North Coast Girl recorded at one of Gavin Thomas' live sessions last year.
Bonnie Raitt with David Crosby and Graham Nash singing Love Has No Pride at Madison Square Garden in 2009. This is an incredible performance from these guys. I don't want to be disrespectful but it's good to know the silver singers can still do it. At least they could in 2009.
These guys are truly spectacular. They played One Winter's Night here in Guildford a couple of years ago and stole the show. This is Bare Jams performing Ebbs & Flows at a Sofar session in The Hague.
This is KT Tunstall doing Black Horse & The Cherry Tree on Later With Jools Holland in 2004. I saw this show when it was first broadcast. I didn't know who she was and I'd never seen anyone use a loop pedal before but she absolutely smashed it.
Six is probably as many as anyone can cope with in one lump so last up is the fabulous Claudia Stark performing Give Me An Answer at Ont' Sofa Live.
Now I suppose I better get on with sorting out my vast recording backlog.
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