Hove Folk Club

Alan Prosser : 3rd September 2010

Alan Prosser will be well known to many as guitarist and songwriter with the magnificent Oysterband. Anyone who turned up expecting him to reprise songs from their extensive back catalogue might have been surprised to find so little, but could surely not have been disappointed by the outstanding performance we were to see. More of that later.

The evening opened in usual style with a song from our host before we welcomed a fine collection of floor singers. In addition to regulars Ruth and Jon (this time with Lawrie adding some thrash ukulele) we had Paul from the Gutterhearts with his 12 string; Owen, who bravely included a guitar instrumental; and Willow Hain (described by our host as a four-piece a cappella trio) - all of whom gave outstanding performances.

And so to our guest. What a treat we were in for. Combining consummate musicianship with an easy relaxed vocal delivery, Alan had us eating out of his hand from first to last. He started with a complex instrumental that saw the guitar players present almost open mouthed and then went on to draw on a wide range of styles and influences to give us a wonderfully varied evening. Some jazz, a little folk (Davy Lowston, learned from the singing of Martin Carthy), blues (Maybelle, Alan’s rewrite of the Willie Dixon classic My Babe), some 5/4 instrumentals and a pop song or two. To my admittedly untrained ear, the playing showed influences from Ireland, North Africa, India and such homegrown talent as Davy Graham and Nic Jones to name but a few. The only concessions to Oysterband repertoire were a version of Si Kahn’s Mississippi Summer sung previously by June Tabor on their seminal album album Freedom and Rain and, as an encore, The Deserter.

All in all a lovely evening and what a nice man Alan is too. His solo outings are all too infrequent and we were privileged to have been present at one. At one point Alan said that his first hero was Davy Graham and in terms of the range I was reminded of the early Davy, drawing influences from all over and turning it into something special and unique. I can think of no higher praise that I could heap on Alan. Come back soon.

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