Gig review: Frank Burkitt and Chris Stone

Published on Wednesday 8 July 2009 19:02

FRANK BURKITT & CHRIS STONE *** LEITH FOLK CLUB, THE VILLAGE, EDINBURGH

HAVING cut his musical teeth performing with Sinatra-style swing, Highland-born singer-songwriter Frank Burkitt became a relatively late convert to folk music after moving to Edinburgh. Along the way, he teamed up with Australian fiddler Chris Stone, whose style is rooted in his childhood love of Scottish tunes, while also drawing on his formal studies across genres from classical to Appalachian. With Burkitt on guitar, the line-up here was completed by double bassist Holly Downes, and Kara Filbey on backing vocals and flute.

Burkitt's songs, too, revealed a fluent breadth of influences, including country, blues, jazz and acoustic pop, as well as traditional ballad idioms. Centrally, they also revealed his sure-handed melodic facility, allied to skilful wordcraft and an attractive voice, whose understated balance of softness and sinew variously recalled James Taylor, Josh Ritter and Dougie MacLean. Standouts included the love song King and Queen and the vividly-wrought Celtic/country narrative Working Hands. While the first of his two covers, Richard Thompson's Vincent Black Lightning, proved rather a pale imitation, his stripped-down version of Tim O'Brien's Brother Wind brought an artfully forlorn freshness to the original.

Stone's fiddle was a restlessly active partner in the mix, although as a couple of instrumental sets highlighted the fact his playing's ambition and gusto often outweighs its accuracy. Other elements also needed tighter technical quality-control, including Burkitt's sometimes iffy intonation, but his performance nonetheless affirmed him as a singularly promising talent.