ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 1, 2016 22:39:13 GMT
Ralph has a happy knack of enabling his audiences to feel they are friends just relaxing in his front room listening to him chatting, playing and singing.
Tonight was no exception. For one and three quarter hours without an interval he kept us all enthralled. The song selection seemed a little weighted towards earlyish material, which for me, is just right. I was delighted to hear him do Nanna's Song right after his opener. Too many to remember all the titles, but lovely to hear Barges and The Setting, especially. A couple of instrumental choons nicely done too. Haven't heard him do Wino and the Mouse live before, and he seemed to insert it almost as an impromptu afterthought.
Mostly he played Miss Gibson, but The Setting was played on his newish signature Martin. What?! Ralph playing a Martin? Well, this particular Martin is more or less based on a Gibson J45. Sounded very nice too - I'd like to have heard him play it more, but being especially tuned for The Setting, he reverted to the J45 straight away afterwards.
In fact the sound all through was good, except when he was playing the piano, when his rich voice was at first a little overwhelmed by a very lush mid-range piano sound. Unfortunately Mr Soundman chose to remedy that by thinning out the vocal sound, boosting its the treble and volume, which spoiled things a bit. If the piano sound had been hollowed out a little in the middle and reduced in volume I'm sure the result would have sounded better.
But, it certainly didn't spoil the evening in any way, Ralph was on good form vocally with just a very occasional break on high notes and he played well throughout. Lots of relaxed chat between songs. A delightful evening!
Ooh, and also managed to book for SoH at the Brewhouse in November, doing an almost warm up gig for their Autumn Tour - looking forward to that - Miranda will be there too, and they have Fylde playing Megan Henwood as support
Keith
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Oct 4, 2016 8:17:25 GMT
I'd like to see Mr McTell at some stage - sounds like a wonderful evening. Sadly for me, SoH are once again not venturing NotB during their forthcoming tour, the nearest venue to me being Gateshead  |
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Post by Martin on Oct 7, 2016 8:14:00 GMT
By sheer dumb luck, I have discovered that Ralph is playing at The Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow tomorrow evening. By an even stranger piece of fortune, I have just secured two tickets for said performance - coincidentally, the last time I was at this venue was for Show of Hands, who are not bothering to come up here again  Anyway, now the weekend is like  |
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 7, 2016 10:10:52 GMT
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 7, 2016 10:20:14 GMT
By sheer dumb luck, I have discovered that Ralph is playing at The Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow tomorrow evening. By an even stranger piece of fortune, I have just secured two tickets for said performance - coincidentally, the last time I was at this venue was for Show of Hands, who are not bothering to come up here again Anyway, now the weekend is like Always a great evening out. SaveSave |
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Oct 7, 2016 10:24:44 GMT
Happy Ralphing, Martin !  Keith By sheer dumb luck, I have discovered that Ralph is playing at The Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow tomorrow evening. By an even stranger piece of fortune, I have just secured two tickets for said performance - coincidentally, the last time I was at this venue was for Show of Hands, who are not bothering to come up here again Anyway, now the weekend is like Always a great evening out. SaveSaveNot being overly familiar with his music (apart from the obvious ), I wanted to pick up a CD in preparation for tomorrow evening. Would you recommend any one record in particular ahead of the gig? |
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 7, 2016 10:34:26 GMT
Not being overly familiar with his music (apart from the obvious ), I wanted to pick up a CD in preparation for tomorrow evening. Would you recommend any one record in particular ahead of the gig? I'd for for his last solo CD — Somewhere Down the Road. A lovely album, fine songs and playing. Otherwise Easy is always a good first start. SaveSave |
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 7, 2016 10:46:34 GMT
Any one CD would represent only a fraction of his output - and he may not play any of the songs from it anyway. In Taunton he tended to do mostly earlyish songs with a smattering of later stuff. Have a trawl through Youtube for live stuff, Martin, or search Spotify for a continuous playlist. Enjoy. Keith |
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Post by Martin on Oct 7, 2016 10:50:59 GMT
I'm not sure how to work 'spotify', and I wanted something for the car.
Might check out Easy or perhaps Somewhere Down the Road or Not Till Tomorrow.
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Post by leoroberts on Oct 7, 2016 10:52:14 GMT
Go into just about any decent music shop (or Amazon) and you can get one of his compilation albums for not a great deal of money. Most Amazon albums also come with a free MP3 download so you don't eveb have to wait for delivery  Like Keith, RMcT was my introduction to finger-picking. And a great introduction it was. |
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 7, 2016 13:10:37 GMT
I'm not sure how to work 'spotify', and I wanted something for the car. Might check out Easy or perhaps Somewhere Down the Road or Not Till Tomorrow. All three of those would-be fine choices. SaveSave |
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Post by andyhowell on Oct 7, 2016 13:15:53 GMT
Just a sight word of warning - probably enough to earn Keith's wrath.
There are a lot of cheap early compilations around that are not that good a sound quality and maybe a bit dated. One of the more recent Live CDs would be a good alternative.
Right Side Up is probably my favourite.
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Post by Martin on Oct 7, 2016 13:19:33 GMT
Cheers, Andy, I'll have a look at it.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 7, 2016 14:18:36 GMT
Just a sight word of warning - probably enough to earn Keith's wrath. There are a lot of cheap early compilations around that are not that good a sound quality and maybe a bit dated. One of the more recent Live CDs would be a good alternative. .............. Couldn't agree more actually Andy. Keith |
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Post by Martin on Oct 8, 2016 22:13:18 GMT
Well, that was rather good. Lovely, chilled out performance, great songs and a nice venue. We loved it. I made the merchandise man fairly happy too...  |
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Jo whoever he is.
