Kim Richey: The Tunnels

ON THOSE antique programmes that seem to dominate daytime television schedules, the experts are always going on about the fact that "quality always sells."

How much healthier and exciting things would be if the same ethos case meant anything on the music scene.

Certainly artists like Kim Richey, one of the finest of the American singer songwriters, would be playing to a lot more people than the 40 or so who supported this gig.

And those who didn't attend would have missed a great gig of very fine songs by an exceptional performer who seamlessly marries pop, rock and country and has the ability to write heartbreaking song with beautiful melodies and yet with little trace of saccharine.

Despite having a brand new album to promote she opened not with a new song but Every River from her second album.

And went on to play songs from right across her long career including I Know, The Circus Song, the lovely Chinese Boxes and the almost jazzy Jack And Jill.

I Will Follow, which she told us was used in the soundtrack to the Knight Rider movie, was a real standout of the first set and In The Absence Of Your Company was gorgeous.

The second half also started in the past, with Highway 99 from her very first album, but she then began to introduce a lot more new songs into the set list.

With the help of co-writers like Mark Olson (In The Years To Come), Pat Mclaughlin (For A While) and Boo Hewerdine (Word To The Wise) she seems to have found her Americana voice after veering more towards pop in some of her recent recordings.

Careful How You Go, written with Will Kimbrough and about walking through London streets late at night when "all the good people were in their beds" was especially beautiful with all the quiet serenity of empty night time streets in a usually busy city.

Her co-writer on Leaving 49 was actually in the audience, because she wrote this song with Beth Rowley and the Bristol singer joined Kim Richey on stage to sing it as a duet. It was a real treat as the two voices blended together.

There were lots of older songs as well, of course, including I'm Alright and Not A Love Like This, which she explained should have been a lullaby but ended as being "this mean uptempo song", and not too unexpectedly she closed with A Place Called Home.

The audience had up until now seemed rather restrained but their demands for an encore were very loud and she returned for one more song, unusually choosing a new one, Once In Your Life.

7/10

KEITH CLARK