| |
Whiskyfun
Home
(Current
entries)
Concert
Review
Index
(All Reviews
Since 2004)
Leave
feedback
 |
Copyright
Nick Morgan and crew
|
|
|
Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
|
 |
|
ROGER CHAPMAN
AND THE SHORTLIST
The Jazz Café, Camden Town,
London, May 5th 2009
I
won’t hear a word said against Roger
Chapman, owner of one of the most
distinctive voices in British rock and roll, former
vocalist in Family (probably the greatest of all
the Greatest British Rock Bands Not To Make It),
and a cultured exponent of the English language.
I hadn’t realised that ‘fuck’
originated in Scandinavia: the Norwegian ‘fukka’,
meaning copulate, and possibly the Swedish ‘focka’,
with the same meaning, found their way into English
via the Scots (who as we all realise, know a fucking
good thing when they see one). One of its first
recorded written usages is in Sir David Lyndsay’s
sixteenth-century comedic morality play Ane Satyre
of the Thrie Estaits, an attack on the Scottish
establishment. |
 |
|
Whether Mr Chapman knows this (“Fuck off”)
I know not (“Don’t be so fucking cheeky”),
but he certainly uses the word (“Which fucker’s
next, you fuckers?”) with the concentrated
abandon of a naughty schoolboy (“I just don’t
want to sing that fucking fucker tonight”)
aided by his chums from Neverland, The Short List.
Tonight they comprise regulars Stevie Simpson on
guitars and fiddle, Ian Gibbons on keyboards, Gary
Twigg on bass, John Lingwood on drums, and Helen
Harding on backing vocals. On lead guitar, proudly
demonstrating his Hughes
and Kettner amplifier and pedal board is Geoff
Whitehorn, more often to be found playing guitar
with Procul Harum, amongst others (“I’ve
got to go now to get the fucking bus home”).
Which reminds me, for the longest-running legal
dispute in the history of rock and roll, have a
look here. |
 |
Anyway,
I won’t hear a word said against Roger Chapman,
even if he is slowing down a bit on stage. No more
microphone stand callisthenics or manic tambourine
trashing, he’s now almost rooted to the spot,
never too far from his music stand and the lyrics
to his songs. Memory bad, eyesight good. And his
moody menace (“Fuck off”) is somewhat
tempered by all too apparent frailty of not just
the memory: he even shivers when he pours a bottle
of water over his head. But that’s not the
point. Chapman is a key part of my personal rock
and roll history (as I have explained before) and
one of the reasons I’m still going to gigs
is because of the profound impact he had on me all
those years ago with Family, on the stage of Birmingham
Town Hall, my first big gig outside of the Blues
Attic at the Jolly Weavers. Watching him come onto
stage and sing ‘Good news, bad news’
was like a huge electric shock from which I’ve
never quite recovered. |
| Once
seen, heard and felt, never fucking forgotten. And
the voice, that rasping rhythm and blues vibrato,
is still there, maybe not with quite the same range,
but still with the ability to send an ice-cold shiver
down your spine, notably when he sang a superb version
of Dylan’s ‘Blind Willie McTell’. |
|
Chapman has never rested on his laurels. He tours
endlessly, mostly in continental Europe and in particular,
Germany, and regularly records new material (his
latest album, Hide Go Seek, is just out). So the
majority of this gig’s material is drawn from
the past ten years or so, rather than the past forty.
Songs like ‘One more time’, ‘Kiss
my soul’, ‘Sweet bird of youth’
and ‘Two pieces of silver’ all fit neatly
into the R&B groove that Chapman has developed
for himself over the years. There’s a great
version of ‘He said, she said’, which
morphs into ‘Sixteen tons’, and ‘Short
list’ (“I’m going to sing this
fucker because I’ve told you I don’t
want to sing that other fucker”). And of course
he ends with Family’s ‘Burlesque’
before returning for a messy ‘Weaver’s
answer’ and a rip-roaring ‘Who pulled
the night down’, from his first solo album,
Chappo, which has stood the test of time very well,
a bit like Roger, I suppose. |
Sadly
not currently in production, you can only buy
it from dealers, from around £40 to £80.
But I would urge some caution: Chapman has suffered
greatly from the scourge of counterfeit or unlicensed
CD sales (yep, it’s not just malt whisky
and electric guitars that get faked), to the extent
that you can download ‘Chappo’ from
his website ‘for free’ (well, almost),
which I urge you to do. And remember, I won’t
hear a fucking word said against him. - Nick
Morgan (concert photographs by Kate)
Listen:
Roger
Chapman on MySpace |
 |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's
Concert Reviews
|
|
|
|
|
There's nothing more down there... |
|
|
|
|
