‘I can now see what all the fuss is about’
Ross Wilson tells a story about how, early in his career, as a struggling musician he sent his demo CD to folk clubs across the country.
One anonymous club hated it so much that they made the effort to send it back with a Post-it note saying ‘This is not folk music!’, scrawled in red on it.
Wilson, who is Blue Rose Code, gets the last laugh – said club has tried to book him several times since and been given short shrift. The tale serves as introduction to (This Is Not a) Folk Song ,a lightly reworked version of ...Love Song from his debut album North Ten.
To mark a decade since that album’s release, Wilson is playing it in full in the first half of this show. Originally from Edinburgh, the album reflects the period when Wilson moved to London in a bid to ‘make it’ in the music biz.
With Wilson upfront on acoustic guitar, he is joined by Lyle Watt on electric guitar and drummer Stuart Brown, playing an impressively minimalist kit. The songs showcase his strong sense of place and storytelling, as well as a keen sense of the romantic. The second half features songs from the rest of his career, and while more upbeat, it draws on the same seam of folk, blues and jazz-inflected songwriting.
Fittingly, seeing as we’re in a church, Wilson talks of how intimate gigs like this are a form of ‘secular communion’, and as an affirmed atheist, I can feel where he’s coming from. It’s a prelude to (I Wish You) Peace In Your Heart, as uplifting and cynicism-free a song as you’re ever likely to hear.
He also brings a special guest on stage – Steve Knightley of folk superstars Show of Hands. The pair met at last summer’s Wickham Festival, formed a friendship at the bar and eventually wrote a song long-distance. Knightley’s here unannounced to give the new song, Remember This Kiss, its live debut and it is as spine-tinglingly stunning as you could hope for.
There’s also a touch of politics in another new song, inspired by the awful statistic that one in five children in the UK lives in poverty.
Having had Blue Rose Code recommended to me for years but never managing to see them live, I can now more than see what the fuss is about.