Hove Folk Club

Ben Paley and tab hunter : Friday 4th February 2011
Report by Harry Bolter

Another busy night at the Poets' Corner, with a room quite literally full of performers. A variety of styles and instruments was employed to entertain the mainly participating audience;  certainly cigarette box guitars was a first for the club, with two-thirds of the Richwards putting aside their ukes for the pleasures of this strange instrument which sounded very mellow as they played American slide guitar. Alex sang a haunting song in a modern style, sounding like Hove's answer to Lily Allen - great engagement with the audience and a haunting song.

So on to our guests, Ben and Tab. Ben plays fiddle to a high standard, and the fiddle players in the audience were seen looking on open-mouthed at his finger and bow technique, which produced songs in the style of jigs, reels, airs and American Bluegrass. Ben is accompanied by Tab, who plays guitar and sings the Yiddish lyrics on their Klezmer songs. I had never come across this word before but from what I can gather is a style of music from the Jewish tradition. It was a first for the audience at Hove to sing in Yiddish, but we managed the oi oi oi with no problem.

Picking out individual songs in a set made up of a truly individual virtuoso performances is difficult;  the whole set was captivating and delivered with much humour in between songs.

Another fine evening of music.

Web site: www.blazingstrings.co.uk

MySpace: www.myspace.com/benpaley

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