Memorable show weaved Polwart’s own songs and covers with material from her many projects
It may have been freezing cold outside but the welcome for Karine Polwart from a near sold-out Tolbooth audience on Friday was warm and welcoming.
And it’s no more than you would expect for the singersongwriter - 47 on Saturday -who grew up in Banknock and, she said, was an artist in residence at the Tolbooth when it opened in 2002.
Indeed, members of a choir she mentored during that time were in the audience and helped her along with some of the eclectic programme of selfpenned songs,cover versions and material from the many and varied musical projects in which she has been involved.
Her instant rapport with the audience and flair for storytelling gave wit, background and perspective to the programme in which her super singing voice was to the fore.
Accompanied on stage by brother Steven Polwart and his many guitars, she delighted with songs such as Salters Road and material from her latest album A Pocket of Wind Resistance (Hudson Records).
It grew out of a theatre project prompted by Karine’s fascination with Fala Flow, a protected peatbog of unrivalled views near her home south of Edinburgh.
From that project, Lark in the Clear Air - from a collaboration with Pippa Murphy- was one of the standout performances on the night. Another was King of Birds, a mystical meditation on a Darwinist scrap to be top bird.
Also memorable was a song derived from a project by Martin Green, called Flit, concerning human migration and haunting versions of songs of Joni Mitchell and Kate McGarrigle.
She introduced her version of Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem, which has the lyric: ‘There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in’. And she mused that the line was the most used ‘sign off ’ quote by her demographic of “folk singers and social workers”.
The evening closed with the audience joining in with the chorus from Follow the Heron, from Karine’s Scribbled in Chalk album. A memorable end to a delightful evening.