The Duke And The King is a new project from Simone Felice (of The Felice Brothers). Not another Americana band of ernest balladeers I hear you cry.well, yeah, they are.and bloody good at it too. I was unfamiliar with their work and went along because friends were going (Kev was down from Aberdeen and had got tickets for himself, Mark and Steve, so Martin and I went along to see them as much as the bands).
First up was Neil McSweeney. its hard to be a quiet solo acoustic guitar player/singer when its early doors and people are chatting but he coped really well. Next up were The Croshaw Family who made a lovely noise with songs about trains. Turns out they really are related to each other.
The Duke and the King are a real band with each member playing several roles: The temptress violinist that gave a real country flavour to a lot of the songs and a sad weight to others, The drummer whos powerful voice boomed through the club, the baseball capped guitarist who looked like hed been rescued from a shelter but obviously has talent to spare and the mainman Felice who got the crowd going, ‘lie-o-lie’ -ing along to ‘The Morning I Get To Hell’ and didnt mind taking a backseat to let the others shine whilst he took a turn on the drums. A great set that included this Neil Young cover
They were obviously having a ball, getting so into it that they ended up on the floor jamming at one point and seemed happily surprised that the appreciative crowd knew their stuff. I didnt, but on the strength of tonights performance, this is an album and back catalogue Im looking forward to exploring. You can start with this Daytrotter.com session recorded a week ago
Bob the Chiropodist