Songs of friendship, green-eyed girls, cold hard cash, folk daemons, lemonade, sad sisters called Arabella and family members no longer with us filled the disco-balled Bedford in South London. Notionally it was to raise money for Dementia UK, but it really showcased the power of live amplified music in front of an audience.
It may seem that superstars like Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift are the only acts earning money from the music industry, and that’s because it’s true. The day before this fifth edition of Live In The Living Room Gives Back, a piece titled ‘There has never been more music, but most artists go hungry’ ran in The Times. In it, a stat sourced from Spotify laid bare that in the years between 2017 and 2022, there were roughly 3,500 acts who earned over $500,000 through streaming, 40 (forty) artists of whom were at the top of the tree in the $10m+ bracket. You can add about just over 400,000 who earn over $1000 and under $500,000. There cannot be too many who come from Britain.
Unless they are physically in the same room as you, streaming is the key way to reach an audience today thanks to the cratering of the market for physical music. It used to be that the tour sold the record, but today it’s the other way round. Acts like Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift got famous through radio play and support slots for bigger artists, and they needed to recoup an advance of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Every one of the 22 acts – and two performing comperes Kirstie Kraus and Linda Conway – lacks the financial backing to hit the sort of stages Dua and Taylor do. They are all entrepreneurs and do things off their own back, and this is particularly true of visiting American artists.
Kirstie is in the middle of a five-week visit to the UK and has already played Country2Country and sat on the BBC Breakfast sofa; she does Country on the Coast next week, where she will play one, two or all three of the songs she played at The Bedford. New Sin City is the best, taking the theme of Nash Vegas and running with it, although her two recent singles Dab A Dolly and Beaches Be Crazy (sic) are good fun too. There is a lot of Lauren Alaina in her patter and delivery, and I reckon Kirstie will return for 2025.
She was the most authentically country performer on the day, although Andrew Jones uses his 15 years of experience as frontman of bands like Journey Home to add commercial country appeal to delightful love song Back to the Start. Wood Burnt Red are quietly becoming one of the scene’s most reliable bands, and performed four songs as part of the closing round including All I Need Is You and Redneck.
Also on that final round were Eddy Smith and Nick Edwards, whose mix of soul, country and roots is a perfect advert for what we call country in the UK. Eddy was without his band The 507, with whom he announced he would be playing an October date at London’s Jazz Café. Sitting at a Yamaha keyboard, he vamped along with Wood Burnt Red and Nick. As part of his own quartet of songs he threw in a new one with the hook ‘how can this be wrong’ which sounds like a future staple in a live set. The other three are already fan favourites: Middle of Nowhere, Love Sick and The Ballad of Bobby Grey.
They silenced a crowd which was not always quiet – the drummer from AKA Chris and Tony in particular – but which was never rowdy. Nick Edwards brought his full band to showcase his own tunes like Daddy’s Little Girls, a new song about having ‘a devil on my shoulder’ and Trouble, which he quite rightly said may well be a single. Just this past week he put out Troubadour Soul Sinner, which is his life in a song and will be on the album he is in the middle of finishing. Kudos to Nick for having the funds to pay for studio time, a band and a producer, and I await the tour to promote the album.
Many of the acts are Live In The Living Room old-timers by now. Tu-Kay and Ryan, respectively the male and female halves of the duo, brought songs of friendship and companionship which Rebecca performed with her trademark hand dances, while The Old Mule followed his 2023 performance with a reprise of Here With You, which was dedicated to his grandma, and two new songs, one of which is a self-titled theme song.
James Dunne also reappeared, offering his satire on the UK country scene called It’s Alright, which has the line ‘I sell my soul just to open up a door’, and a tribute to his uncle Austin. Ben Selleck sang Soul Food, a song about his family who rather cutely were watching on from the balcony, as well as the power-poppy Back To You and the divorce-themed new one 50-50 City.
Owen Morgan runs Live Country LDN and picked three London-based acts for the 1pm round: Cat Rose Smith from California has a pure voice and songs about staying in bed and the springtime; Jo Girdleston grew up in Oklahoma and poured memories of a road trip through the ‘cactus and rattlesnakes’ of Arizona before offering an imaginary folk tale of a daemon who effectively conned her into a one-night stand (and even gave her a ring!); Rhiannon Page showed promise at her first ever writers’ round and had the same mix of charm and vulnerability as former Living Room performer Louise Parker, the former on the song Lemonade and the latter on a song with the line ‘I don’t know where I belong’.
A few hours later Owen performed alongside Andrew Jones and James Dunne. He managed to get through a song dedicated to his late mum, which he offered in between anthemic singalongs Green Eyed Girl and Last Train Choir. All three shared a lot of humanity and hookiness, and it was lovely to catch up with him after his set.
Andy Hewitt came down from Glastonbury to sing three devastating songs about heartbreak, bereavement and dementia. I also liked the sweet high alto of Isobel Thatcher and two ladies called Zoe and Jasmine who perform as Roswell. They had a winning mix of anger and tenderness, the former on the ferocious Can’t Take My Soul, the latter on a song about Jasmine’s sister Arabella.
Both this afternoon and in general. there is much overlap between folk, roots, country and UK Americana. I am glad that the duo Southbound and the folky trio The Lost Notes lit up the 3pm round, each with a hat-trick of magnificent pieces of music. Southbound dared to say they were suffering from imposter syndrome to which I say pshaw! They set the chords from Closing Time by Semisonic to a song in praise of Cold Hard Cash (which is available on Spotify) while they declared their independence on Savannah Soul.
As for The Lost Notes, my discovery of the day, I say they ought to bring their three-part harmonies and tight musicianship down from Birmingham more often. Their three songs included recent single Don’t Try It On Me and two that featured running, one of which was written in response to a request from Oli to bandmate Ben to add more incident to his songs.
Fin Pearson watched on in admiration during that 3pm round. He had been one of many standby names to be called up to replace acts who were waylaid between the initial announcement and the show itself. With a voice that reminded me of a young Paul Heaton, he played I Can Do and Devils For Witches, which included the coda ‘greener pastures come with bluer skies’, which is good writing.
Buckle and Boots beckons for Fin, as it does for Wood Burnt Red and Nick Edwards. All three are down in Southsea next weekend for Country on the Coast, as are James Dunne and Nicole Shortland. Nicole was part of the first round at 12pm, playing poppy tunes Blow, Easy and World On Fire accompanying herself on guitar after being let down last minute. Like Fin, Nicole is a country newcomer who has written that she is finally ‘free enough to create what my hearts want’. The more the merrier, I say!
Steve Young had his name stuck on his guitar for better branding, and his voice also had a touch of the Paul Heatons about it. He and violinist Jade tore through The Devil Went Down To Georgia, which Living Room head honcho James Vince had always wanted to hear at the event. Before reading a tribute to his dad and grandma, who were both afflicted by dementia, James promised another Living Room event in November which rather neatly ties in with his 40th birthday.
You can donate to the Just Giving page here, while the whole show is available as a livestream on the Facebook page of The Bedford here.
A Country Way of Life 