Universal Folk Club, Glasgow, 27 January 2008

Ishbel Macaskill

THE SONGS of Scotland concert series at Celtic Connections, ten intimate shows in the cosy upstairs howff at the Universal, has shifted its programming this year from a regionalised to a more thematic focus, a change that certainly paid rich dividends in this case, given folk music’s rich motherlode of songs reflecting the female perspective.

Gaelic singer Ishbel MacAskill was our characteristically gracious host for the evening, but restricted herself entirely to MC-ing duties, leaving the vocal honours to the variously fresh and seasoned talents of fellow Gael Maggie MacDonald, celebrated Scots balladeer Chris Miles, and rapidly rising star Siobhan Miller, whose duo with Jeana Leslie won the BBC Young Folk Award in December.

Each sang solo and unaccompanied in turn, a couple of numbers at a time, in an absorbingly diverse selection of material that ran the gamut of women’s experience from unwanted pregnancy to maternal tenderness, industrial labour to sexual frustration.

Miller’s opening contribution unveiled her own maiden foray into songwriting, a simple but affecting ballad about her grandfather, while MacDonald’s included a traditional lullaby for a granddaughter, its lingering, gently lilting phrases conjuring the festivities that will one day take place at her wedding.

As well as a splendidly raunchy unexpurgated version of ‘John Anderson My Jo’, and the prostitute’s lament ‘Wha’ll Mow Me Now?’, Miles also gave us Ewan McVicar’s ‘Shift and Spin’, the song’s artless economy a perfect foil for her voice’s imposing grandeur.

MacDonald is particularly noted as a puirt-a-beul specialist, and quickstepped through her paces in a seemingly somewhat bawdy march, strathspey and reel set – translated beforehand with plenty of risqué humour – rounded off by some equally fleet-footed stepdancing from Miller.

Not that we needed any more convincing of that young lady’s talents by this point. Even among such a quality line-up, and at the age of barely 20, Miller shone out as a singer of rare gifts, her voice matching bright, trenchant clarity with a wonderfully earthy play of deeper colours and emotional textures, meanwhile displaying meticulous attention to expressive and dynamic detail. When Miles broke the silence following one of Miller’s songs with an awestruck “That’s scary”, she spoke for everyone in the room.

© Sue Wilson, 2008

Links

• Celtic Connections