Music
Eric Bibb
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Rob Adams
four stars
IT WASN'T just his daughter Yana’s presence that gave Eric Bibb’s return to Edinburgh the feeling of a family gathering. The habitually behatted blues troubadour with the soothing preacher man’s manner had a band in tow that by finale time had grown into a mini united nations with representatives from South Africa, New York, Santa Fe, Sweden, Ireland and Scotland (Fraser Fifield adding soprano saxophone and whistle) exuding familial closeness.
Bibb is, as his song says, Connected and he connects with his audience on a level that pretty much ignores the fact that he’s on a stage. Between song chats are quietly affable and often warmly authoritative and his songs and singing are inclusive and involving, borne invariably on an acoustic guitar groove that was enhanced here by Staffan Astner’s masterful Telecaster chords, licks and fiery soloing and bassist Trevor Hutchison’s sure unobtrusive presence.
From a superbly resigned and sincere solo reading of Going Down Slow, Bibb built a set that gathered particular momentum with the arrival of gospel singers André De Lange, whose South African chanting contributed a soul-fired counterpoint to Bibb’s own singing, and Paris Renita. Bibb can be thought-provoking, as on Rosewood’s story of racial violence, and scathing (We Don’t Care’s attack on modern society’s values) but he also relays comfort and joy in Wayfaring Stranger and On My Way to Bamako respectively.
He has also passed on his – and his father, Leon’s - singing genes to Yana, whose opening set had the blues at its core but also reflected her Swedish connections and her cool individuality, not least on her marvellously creative interpretation of Paul McCartney’s I Will.
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