Beth Nielsen Chapman & Marcus Hummon Live. Llandudno, 6 March 2010.

It was Saturday night and rather than fightin’ I’m off to lovely Llandudno on the North East Wales coast to witness a performance by an artist who I ‘met’ by accident in HMV. It was during one of those CD sales when you can buy great music dirt cheap, and while you flip through the shelves think, ‘I should have friggin’ waited for the sales!’ after having paid top dollar. As I struggled against shoppers looking for bargains to recycle on Ebay, I spotted this lone CD with a great cover and by an artist called Beth Nielsen Chapman. I was impressed by the name which sort of cried quality and country, and at three quid it wasn’t really an expensive gamble. The cover art showed the artist looking down holding a bunch of red roses and I immediately thought ‘love and loss.’ I wasn’t wrong. The album was originally released in 1997 and was written around the death of her husband in 1994 from cancer. It rapidly became one of my top twenty albums out of the whole of my vast collection.

SAND AND WATER was, until very recently, the only Beth Nielsen Chapman album I owned, and perhaps the only explanation I can give is that since I became involved in Shakenstir my focus has been on albums that are sent to me for review, and I seldom bought anything. There is another possibility though, and that is that I didn’t want to be disappointed by hearing something lesser from this talented lady. Well, now I present a radio show I’ve started buying again albeit very selectively, so during a recent trip to Her Majesty’s Voice I spotted her latest album, released just days ago. With the Llandudno concert firmed up I invested in the hope that she would be playing tracks from it. The album is superb and finds Beth in a more optimistic but reflective place following a period of personal turbulence including two successful battles with cancer.

Elsewhere on the site there’s an informative and lively interview she gave to Brian Campbell from The Irish News which will provide some background to this great artist. Needless to say this event was one of my most anticipated and it didn’t disappoint. Along for the ride was fellow Nashville singer/songwriter Marcus Hummon who has also written major chart hits for several top performers, along with several of his own acclaimed albums. The theatre venue is magnificent and packed with 1,500 fans. The stage was set for one of the finest shows I have ever witnessed.

Marcus wandered onto the stage and picked up a guitar from battery of acoustics lined up like soldiers behind him. With a natural, friendly smile and gentle banter, he’s the class of artist one feels instantly at home with. And what a performance! He has an easy but expressive voice; a polished performer and writer by any standard. I should mention at this point that I rarely see a live performance without having first listened to the act’s most recent album. But if I haven’t heard the album prior and I like what I hear, I’ll scurry on over to the merch table and invest. And so it was on the night, with one song in particular called ‘Rosanna’ that tied the knot. It’s a narrative folk rocker based on a real-life young South American lady initially forced into prostitution, but who eventually forged a good life for herself and her daughter in the USA. But one fateful day she was stopped by the police for a minor road traffic violation, and was eventually deported back to her country of birth, Honduras. Now there were other excellent songs played by Marcus (notably ‘Bless The Broken Road’ and ‘Born To Fly’), but it was this one and the passionate rendition of it that caused the storm, led to the purchase, and airplay on my radio show the following night.

The great thing for me about music is the discovery of great talent, old and new. Marcus Hummon arrived as a stranger in that venue on Saturday night but left as a friend to the 1,500 punters that watched him. That’s a pretty special thing to happen, and as rare as hens’ teeth. When he left the stage to genuine and loud applause, I guessed and hoped he would be back playing with Beth…