John Grant Sings the Songs of Patsy Cline, Glasgow review: 'baritone bliss'
This Patsy Cline tribute show was a gentle education in the artist’s brief but resonant career, writes Fiona Shepherd
John Grant Sings the Songs of Patsy Cline with Richard Hawley and his Band, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow ★★★★
Esteemed 21st century crooner John Grant remains faithful to the alternative and electronic music which has long been his inspiration and his stylistic preference. But he harbours an older musical love for the devastating country lamentations of Patsy Cline, and maintained fidelity to the spirit of her expression and the original arrangements of songs culled from throughout her catalogue at this tribute concert, which he thoughtfully dedicated to the family and friends of Trashcan Sinatras guitarist John Douglas who passed away last week.
Grant was joined in this idiosyncratic endeavour by Sheffield singer/guitarist Richard Hawley, another artist who taps into timeless emotion in his music, and his band, ranged in a semi-circle around Grant who was radiant in Nashville rhinestones. Hawley is no vocal slouch himself but he was employed here for his warm guitar skills. The baritone bliss was all Grant’s as he leaned into the band’s easy strolling pace to deliver the rueful There She Goes, while Hawley’s trademark tremolo embellished the typically lovelorn Just Out of Reach.
The whole concert was a gentle education in Cline’s brief but resonant career from deep cuts to big hitters. These songs captured perpetual disappointment in love, whether accompanied by rock'n'roll twang on Crazy Arms, plangent lounge piano on So Wrong or Shez Sheridans’ aching slide guitar on Walking After Midnight.
The trilling pop dream of Strange was closer to Grant's own retooling of the torch song while he relished one of his early Cline favourites, Sweet Dreams. Her most famous anthem, Crazy, went straight to Glasgow's love affair with country music though Grant waited until the closing Blue Moon of Kentucky to unleash the cry in his voice. The band jammed on mellifluously before Grant returned to perform the delicious, loungey ballad If I Can Stay Asleep, having made some country converts along the way.
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