I’ve been thinking about how to review this record. A lot.
I could go down the usual route of talking about the wonderful songs, or Hannah Aldridge’s incredible voice and both things are true.
But, as “Live In Black And White” is, well, a live record, I’ve decided to talk about it from an entirely personal point of view.
I often wonder if artists know – or indeed care – about the way we, as fans, connect with their work, but Hannah Aldridge, might not know that know that she pretty much rekindled my love for live music.
I’ll explain.
It was July 2017. I’d been doing this website for almost three years and it was starting to feel like a second job. I was doing interviews with bands (which I hated doing, literally having anxiety attacks before I did them) and half the time I didn’t even like the music. I was going to so many gigs that I wasn’t enjoying just because I didn’t like saying no to people (I know these are first world problems, I am not whining, just giving context for what I am about to say) but Hannah had just released “Gold Rush” – her brilliant second record – and she was playing a little café not far from my house one Sunday night. I was going. And I was going as a fan, I wasn’t going to review it. The day of the gig I got an email: “Any chance you could review it for us?” (and I would have anyway….)
It is no exaggeration at all to say that night changed the course of my life.
So good was Hannah Aldridge that night, so stunning was it to hear “Gold Rush” (the song) in its fragile glory, that everything changed. Everything.
So yeah, you’d best believe I get it. “We all struggle with our demons,” she sings here, and hearing that song (probably my favourite of the last five years) here, brings it back.
Everyone else might want to focus on her voice. Listen to “Howlin’ Bones” and it’s easy to see why, or the raw, personal nature of her words – there is no way she could have made something such as “Like You Love Me” (performed here with her dad, Walt) up – and that’s fine, but for me, its all about that show.
Aldridge has superb songs. You can tell, because they all translate to this acoustic setting perfectly. Even “Aftermath” which is a proper John Mellencamp rocker on the record, works brilliantly stripped bare and “Black And White”, which writes so lovingly about her son, is beautiful.
Goat Roper Rodeo are with her for the near bluegrass of “Rails To Ride” (I saw her on this tour too) and the darkly obsessive “Lace” sounds even more menacing than usual – Danni Nicholls harmonies might be the reason or that, and “Parchman” – written from the perspective of a woman on death row for murdering her abusive husband – is always one of the highlights of her shows, and so it is here too.
One thing I haven’t said yet – and should’ve – is to mention the quality of Aldridge’s playing, and the guitar on “Born To Be Broken” underlines that.
There’s two songs in the “encore” as it were. “Lonesome” proves that she can write lust-fuelled break up ballads better than anyone ever has, and “Burning Down Birmingham” ends things here as it normally does, night be about the “old flame burning down Birmingham tonight”, but its also an uplifting moment. I don’t know where this version was recorded, but who knows, if it was in Birmingham, England, I might even be on it.
Hannah Aldridge is a brilliant live-performer. Captivating, yet welcoming. “Live In Black And White” captures that excellently and as she thanks the crowd, it seems to me that the stage is where she belongs.
But its not just lonesome that goes both ways (to borrow a line from one of the songs) and, given how important that one gig was to me just over three years ago, the only way to end it is with these words: Thank you, Hannah.
