Album Review: Steve Knightley - Live in Somerset (Hands On Music)

We've all probably had that niggling thought whilst waiting patiently in the queue at the end of a gig, 'I wonder if this CD is going to be anything like what we've just heard?' I dare say there's been the occasional disappointment when we've got the thing home only to find it drowned in production, which leaves us resigned to the fact that the gig we've just witnessed is going to have to remain but a memory.

Steve Knightley however, could quite easily place a signed copy of LIVE IN SOMERSET in your mit, confident that the item you're taking home with you is precisely what you've just heard. With a good clear live sound, courtesy of Scott Maxwell, recorded in what sounds like a great venue, the Show of Hands singer presents a selection of carefully considered originals, together with one or two traditional and a couple of contemporary songs written by songwriters that matter. Not completely solo, being accompanied in places by Phillip Henry on dobro and harmonica and Hannah Martin on fiddle, this live album comes really hot off the press having only just been recorded at the David Hall in South Petherton in early December.

Describing his chosen set list as covering 'the land, the sea and the downright miserable', Knightley opens with the unaccompanied All Things Are Quite Silent, tackling traditional material with the same confidence he applies to his own compositions, creating a contemporary feel to both Reynardine and The Oakham Poachers along the way. Hailed as one of England's best songwriters, it comes as no surprise that Knightley tips his hat to both Dylan and Springsteen at the same gig with the gorgeous Girl From the North Country and Downbound Train, the latter which leads seamlessly into one of Show of Hands' most enduring songs Country Life.

Whilst the sea songs include Dick Gaughan and Brian McNeill's collaborative song John Harrison's Hands, the land is pretty much covered by Knightley's own Hook of Love. For fans of Knightley's day job band, Exile and Cousin Jack are both included as stripped down to the essentials ballads. The cuttingly sardonic Stop Copying Me, which could quite easily have been a Ray Davies song in the 1960s, had social networking been around then, gets the audience going, ironically copying him by repeating each line throughout the chorus!  

Steve is supported by an enthusiastic Somerset audience, all of whom are personally credited on the sleeve, and rightly so, as their full throttle chorus singing makes up a good deal of the atmosphere on this release, most notably on the final song Now You Know. Released just in time for Steve Knightley's solo tour, with support from Jim Causley, LIVE IN SOMERSET will make an ideal souvenir.