Way to Blue: A Tribute to Nick Drake at Birmingham Town Hall
Featuring Martha Wainwright, Graham Coxon, Beth Orton, Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, Camille O’Sullivan, Neil MacColl, Zoe Rahman.
In less than two years, Birmingham’s reborn Town Hall may have already secured its place as the new spiritual home of English folk music.
Last year’s inaugural English Originals mini-festival set the bar pretty high by attracting Norma Waterson and Seth Lakeman to the then newly-restored venue, so the pitfalls of ‘second album syndrome’ must have weighed heavily on the organisers of 2009’s follow-up. They needn’t have worried. Way to Blue, a tribute to the seminal Midland-born songwriter Nick Drake, delivered a definitive ‘I was there’ event to devotees.
Curated and introduced by Drake’s original producer Joe Boyd, the show packed the Town Hall stage with a cast of folk A-listers, each of whom could have sold out the venue many times over.
What brought them together was an obvious reverence for the beautifully despairing music of the tragic Drake who died more than 30 years ago but whose influence seems to grow as he is discovered by generation after generation of singers and songwriters.
Martha Wainwright – as ever, quirkily-dressed – delivered such an evocative version of the always haunting Cello Song that it seemed impossible that the others – including a bashful Beth Orton and a somewhat nervous Graham Coxon – could match the pace. But the evening passed as if in a dream. Songs that are so uniquely Drake they are rarely if ever performed live were given reverent reworkings in a perfectly-paced, magical evening. Riverman, and Fruit Tree were highlights, as was Poor Boy, featuring a never-to-be-repeated line-up of backing singers including Wainwright, Orton, Camille O’Sulivan and arranger Kate St John.
Guitarist Neill MacColl did more to evoke the spirit of Drake himself in From the Morning, and the whole evening was underpinned by a sublime and understated contribution from extraordinary jazz pianist Zoe Rahman.
The standing ovation was richly deserved.
