Elizabeth Cook 21/7/10

Some gigs are classic, not just for the music but for the whole deal, and this was one of them. I hadn't even heard of Elizabeth Cook until Nanci Griffiths sang one of her songs and praised her at a gig in January. I bought a CD and then just a couple of days before this gig saw that she was playing in a pub venue in Leicester. We ended up sitting at a table a few feet from the stage drinking Peroni and chatting to fellow audience members until an excellent support singer-songwriter came on. He was Joe Fournier from Nova Scotia and I liked him to the extent I tried to buy a CD after but they were sold out. He was feisty and slightly grizzled and a good guitar player and his songs were interesting both musically and lyrically.

Elizabeth came on as part of a trio - guitarist Tim Campbell and upright bassist Bones Hillman with her on guitar and vocals.

She came across as genuine alt-country through and through. She said her dad even did a stretch for making moonshine.

She started with 'Blackland Farmer' off the new album and that established the genre and it was just great from the start.
'Mama's Funeral' stood out for me but then so did 'Heroin Addict Sister' definitely. And 'Girlfriend Tonight' which she did early on, was Classic Romantic Country done exactly right. 'El Camino' also went down well. As well as singing her own songs Elizabeth also did some covers such as 'The Day I started loving you again' and 'Storms never last', both beautifully delivered. In fact there wasn't a dud track in the whole gig and she came across like she was actually pleased to be playing in front of 50 or 60 people in a Leicester pub. She should be filling De Montfort and maybe she will next time she hits Leicester.

What's more the girl even did some clog dancing and it looked good (although the overall effect was lessened by the fact she had to do it on a carpet).

Her encore was a couple of classic covers, firstly 'Sunday Morning' and then 'Cash on the Barrelhead Son'. You have to be good in my book to sing Velvet Underground and Gram Parsons classics - and she was.