Celtic Connections

Dirt Road

Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow

Rob Adams

three stars

IN James Kelman’s 2016 novel, Dirt Road, a young music-obsessed Scotsman travels to Louisiana and finds himself in the heart of Cajun and zydeco music. Just like the Skye-based accordionist and composer Blair Douglas who, like Kelman’s hero, Murdo, is an islander and who had a similar experience, the young Stirling-based accordionist Neil Sutcliffe has been able to immerse himself in, and now perform, America’s vernacular music. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and landed a gig, you might say.

His guide, Dirk Powell, knows this music intimately and opening with a bridge between the Scottish and Appalachian traditions, via MacPherson’s Rant and its American equivalent, The Last of Callahan, he plotted a homely path through traditional ballads and Southern hymns towards the Louisiana dance combo that gave young Sutcliffe the chance to take his solos ably in a fiddle and two accordions frontline.

It was a family affair. As Powell moved between fiddle, banjo, piano, accordion and finally a Fender Strat, he introduced his daughters, Amelia and Sophie, for sisterly duets and latterly instrumental support and then singer-accordionist Preston Frank and his bass-playing daughter, Jennifer, helped to form an eight-piece band. Their Scottish guest was clearly in Louisiana heaven and although massed dancing didn’t quite materialise, the Old Fruitmarket rocked to the sound of the bayou.

In keeping with the Louisiana theme, New Orleans-based English singer and pianist Jon Cleary and his admirably grooving bass guitar and drums team opened the concert with a fine set of original songs and New Orleans staples including Allen Toussaint’s Let’s Get Low Down that was as enthusiastically received as it was confidently delivered.