Star rating: ***
There was a party mood in The Village's music room on Monday as Leith Folk Club celebrated its fifth birthday with free wine being dispensed, the headlining artists slipping in a cheeky arrangement of Happy Birthday to You and special guests The Whiskey Hill Ramblers warming things up heartily with mirthful hillbilly irreverence all the way from their very own North Carolinan enclave, just a police car drive from Saughton.
Young Borders fiddler and singer Lori Watson and her Rule of Three can do tongue in cheek mischief too, and have a lot of fun threading tunes together, with brother Innes and former Croft No 5 box player John Somerville providing, respectively, intricate guitar parts and sophisticated accordion shadings alongside Watson's gutsy fiddling. But underneath the occasional entertaining curve ball announcement, a proliferation of pub tales and a fondness for traditional Polish dance metres, lies a serious intention of carrying forward the traditions that the Watsons grew up with in Birgham.
Ettrick shepherd James Hogg is one notable source, with an opening set of tunes showcasing Innes Watson's guitar invention and drive and the sensitivity to light and shade that Somerville, a relatively recent arrival, can contribute. Elsewhere, jigs from Dumfriesshire and original tune sets highlighted imaginative musicianship if also the odd awkward segue.
Lori has an attractive voice and with a little more strength, consistency and attention to detail her Flower of Northumberland and Plooman Laddie, which featured a lovely, understated accompaniment from Somerville, could carry the same clear, engaging quality that made Hogg's gently insistent Maggie the night's most memorable song by a distance.
