CLASS OF ’55
he Sage, sitting grandly on the Gateshead side of the Tyne river, likes its Americana: a poster lists 10 such shows, culminating in July’s Summertyne Americana Festival. The venue also appreciates revivalism; the Solid Silver ’60s Show was here last week, while June sees “the UK’s number one Buddy Holly” return. Spiritually speaking, tonight’s headliners Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones sit somewhere halfway between the two categories. After five solo albums, Thompson has turned to collaboration, first helming 2014’s Family album with various relatives, and now with US singer Jones on their LP Little Windows. She shares her new partner’s love of The Everly Brothers and country music’s classic gender-split partnerships such as Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, and Tammy Wynette and George Jones. Just don’t mention Gram and Emmylou. “Not for me, anyway,” Thompson declares. “I’m a huge Emmylou fan, but less so of Gram; I never gravitated toward the more ragged, loose duety thing. I want to hear singers nail it.” “I like Gram and Emmylou,” counters Jones, “but to me, they’re
Ta flavour of the ’70s, while I always knew, without us saying, that Teddy and my shared sweet spot was going to be more ’50s and ’60s influences.” Thompson is also not having MOJO classify Little Windows as a country record. “There’s no country instrumentation, no fiddle, banjo or pedal steel,” he argues. “To me, this is absolutely a pop record – but pop music made in 1955, like the Everlys and Buddy Holly. The country influence and sound is in our voices.” Ultimately, though, there’s no mistaking the song that Thompson and Jones’s voices dovetail most fully around on the Sage stage: Someone I Used To Know, a song made famous by both Dolly and Porter (Jones’s preferred version) and Tammy and George (Teddy’s choice). But
Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones harmonise Everlys-esque country pop in London and Gateshead.
before the audience are introduced to that already-mentioned shared sweet spot, Thompson plays a 30-minute solo set, not least because the album clocks in at a precious, old-time 26 minutes. Picking out sparse chords on his acoustic, Thompson starts off with Shine So Bright from 2005’s Separate Ways and I Feel from 2011’s Bella. On the fifth song, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Tonight Will Be Fine – which fits Teddy’s self-deprecating and