Reviews

Billy & Bob - Queen's Hall, Hexham (20/10/06)

It's been two years since Billy Mitchell was last in Hexham "backtracking" his way through the music that had most inspired him.

It was good then to welcome him back, doubly good that he brought with him his friend and fellow performer Bob Fox. We heard that they had first met in the Royal Hotel more than 30 years ago.

Their musical partnership was long overdue!

Billy Mitchell has done most things as a performer and songwriter, we remembered him in Jack The Lad, he delighted us in the latter years of Lindisfarne and last Christmas he terrified my young grandson in the Tyne Theatre Pantomime. Like most musical extraverts he's difficult to share a stage with, he moves to the centre and ensures the last word is his. In his association with Bob Fox we see a gentler Billy Mitchell, there is a rapport and respect between the performers that comes across to the audience.

Their repertoire is different, Bob Fox is not a composer but a great collector of songs, mainly traditional, he's the guardian and archivist of that great genre exemplified by Joe Wilson the great Tyneside Music Hall artist. He has the clearest, most effortless voice of any folksinger now performing and his vocal and musical phrasing are subtle. He is strong on sentiment, but never falls into cloying sentimentality.

Billy Mitchell turns the life of himself and his wider family into songs and was full of enthusiasm for his first solo album "The Devil's Ground", songs about the mining tradition of the North East, while Bob Fox also comes from a coal mining family background and sings songs collected from various sources around his native County Durham.

And then there was the craic, gentle banter between both performers and audience. I liked Billy's premonition of death, not only was he going to too many funerals but at his Uncle Ernie's recent cremation he claimed to have caught the wreath, I'll be quoting that line for months to come to my own family. On any other night the chat might have been too long, but such a wealth of good will exists between performers and their fans that anything goes. It was not so much a show, or a gig, as a meeting of a few mutual friends for some songs and music and a few giggles.

And, by the way, did I tell you that they had CDs for sale?

Peter Lewis
Hexham Courant