Gig review: Jim White, Glasgow

FLORIDA native Jim White came late to music-making, following stints, it is said, as a model, boxer, preacher, surfer, cabbie and comedian.
Jim WhiteJim White
Jim White

Jim White - Oran Mor, Glasgow

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Now he just confines himself to songwriting, gigging, making outsider art, composing theatre scores, writing books and recounting autobiographical anecdotes.

He maimed a couple of fingers in a nasty argument with an electric saw in his mid-20s, requiring some modification to his guitar playing. And that’s just a start to the stories he could tell. As with his yarn about driving across the States to play a gig, the travelling to the song was at least as much fun as the arriving. The tale which preceded Irrational Names Sometimes Lead To Irrational Crimes was a particular gem. Among other nuggets he shared with Glasgow was his contention that even the saddest song, such as his own Epilogue To A Marriage, can be rendered chirpy if played in klezmer style. To this end, he was accompanied by Paul Fonfara on clarinet (also saxophone and guitar), who had earlier provided a sombre but soothing support set with zero klezmer interpretation. Fonfara’s magnetic playing provided the evocative embellishment you didn’t realise a song could benefit from until you heard it. The occasional use of looping gave the (mostly) sad songs an otherworldly veneer.

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But White tempered the morose material with a personable, laidback warmth and generosity – in addition to the idiosyncratic storytelling, playing and arrangements, he literally offered the audience the shirt off his back, in return for a charity donation.

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