Butler, Blake and Grant, Edinburgh review: 'a proper supergroup'
Together, guitar-and-vocal trio Bernard Butler, Norman Blake and James Grant add up to more than the sum of their parts, writes David Pollock
Butler, Blake and Grant, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
Butler, Blake and Grant are a proper supergroup in the old-fashioned sense, but there’s no sense of showy bombast about the guitar-and-vocal trio. They sat in a line on stools, James Grant and Norman Blake clutching acoustics, while Bernard Butler had a rack of five electrics – including, he said, two 12-string guitars so he didn’t need to spend time tuning, unlike his peg-twiddling companions.
There was plenty of easy-going teasing between them, which set the audience at ease, particularly from Grant (formerly of Love & Money), who has the driest, most deadpan Glaswegian sense of humour imaginable, and Teenage Fanclub’s avuncular Blake. They took the lead on songs one at a time, showcasing this year’s self-titled debut album and highlights from their individual careers; Butler confused himself while announcing future plans, but it seems an album of such personal covers will either be their next record or their third, after another album of new material.
In the process, their complimentary voices harmonised wonderfully. Grant played his brooding, moody new songs One and One is Two and Girl with a Little Black Number, alongside versions of later Love & Money singles Winter (its coda of Dylan’s I Shall Be Released fitting this setting beautifully) and Last Ship on the River, while Blake led on Down By the Sea, The Writing’s on the Wall, his and Grant’s Bring An End and takes on Teenage Fanclub’s lesser-known Did I Say and Planets.
Ironically, while the slightly younger Butler is best-known as guitarist to singularly talented singers (Suede’s Brett Anderson, David McAlmont, Jessie Buckley), his abilities as a solo singer-songwriter stood up well alongside his companions here. His voice rang with a deep, bittersweet, bluesy maturity during The 90s and The Old Mortality, as well as his own People Move On and a significantly reworked version of McAlmont & Butler’s Yes.
There were also shared covers of the Monkees’ Me & Magdalena and Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl, perfect examples of the sort of lineage this group aspires to sit within. Their talents, powerful on their own, combined to be more than the sum of their parts.
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