Reviews

5 Star B&B - Berwick & Borders Gazette

It's a little bit lazy to continually refer to Billy Mitchell as ex-Lindisfarne singer.

True, he did the band and its music proud over his eight-year stint, but that was then and this is now and the release of the stunning Devil's Ground showed that Billy Mitchell needs no qualification.

On B& B he is joined by fellow Tyneside folkster Bob Fox, and this CD is culled from the pair's 2006 tour (a tour they will repeat in 2007 after appearing at Cropredy).

The pair show the impact that folk music can have when it's placed in the right hands. Mitchell is the slightly feisty, impassioned balladeer while Fox's voice lilts and rolls over some beautiful stories.

And, with a canniness that comes as much from God-given talent as it does from experience, the pair show when great songs are pared down to the bone, they are at their best.

It's not xenophobia to claim that the likes of Big River and When The Boat Comes In belong in the hands of the north east's finest. Both were not only written here but their stories were hacked from the same harsh soil as the coal which features many times, same goes for the singers.

Mitchell and Fox understand these songs.

Old habits die hard though and, as if to mollify an expectant crowd, the set proper finishes off with a wonderfully bare Meet Me On The Corner.

A night in the company of Billy Mitchell and Bob Fox is one spent in the company of old friends and that goes for their music as well.

Berwick and Borders Gazette