Leith Folk Club's smart new home in the Victoria Park House Hotel's cosy, well–appointed function suite doesn't have obvious potential as a honky tonk.
But it soon became one as the currently Seattle-based Rachel Harrington got down to the business of wild side of life country rockin' in the manner of forebears Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells.
They'd already been assisted in this transformation to a road house by the unscheduled appearance of Canadian trio Miss Quincy and the Showdown, who were in town on a night off and increased the cowgirl boot count to seven pairs, opening with a raw set of rootsy electric blues-rock and later providing the dance action as Harrington and her team swung hard towards closing time.
Harrington's move to bandleader is a recent one. She's only been playing electric guitar for a few months and although she, accomplished bass guitarist Moe Provencher, fiddler Alisa Milner and the appropriately named Aimee Tubbs on drums have recorded their first album together and are coming to the end of a long-ish British tour, she gives off a feeling of still acclimatising to the role.
Her onstage vocals can be a little strident and exposed, although Tubbs and Provencher's harmonies add womanly warmth as well as strength and the shortcomings are balanced by an amiability and all-round good-time feel despite the songs' often less-than-happy content.
It's not all hurt and heartbreak. Hippie in My House and Harrington's recollections of her churchy upbringing in Oregon brought humour and a fine off-mic, a cappella encore in gospel standard I Don't Want to be Adjusted to this Life.
HHH
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