Leith Folk Club, The Village, Edinburgh, 16 December 2008

The Bevvy Sisters

A NEWISH vocal trio co-founded by two émigré Highlanders, Lochaber-born Kaela Rowan and Lewis native Heather Macleod, with Edinburgh’s Lindsey Black, the Bevvy Sisters draw on a collective wealth of musical experience, having worked individually with outfits as diverse as the Andy Gunn Band, Mouth Music, the Eliza Carthy Band and La Boum, as well as their own solo projects.

Their current configuration began life at the helm of the Loveboat Big Band, a celebrated 16-piece swing/cabaret side-venture for sundry denizens of the Edinburgh music scene, from which the three lead singers have now set sail under their own name.

The rare vocal chemistry between them is thus synthesised from a vast choice of stylistic ingredients, in meticulously crafted arrangements that strive constantly to present a song afresh, boldly optimising the multi-coloured richness of the singers’ interplay, but always in service to the original words and tune.

This festive-season fixture at Leith’s thriving weekly folk club also highlighted the fast-expanding variety of their repertoire, in an adroitly sequenced set that kept the contrasts and surprises coming.

The Bevvys’ staple genres have always included old-time jazz, country and gospel, as in their gorgeously surging, soaring version of ‘Rock My Soul’, the snappy, sassy ‘Sugarfoot Rag’ or the joyous mounting fervour of ‘Oh Mary Don’t You Weep’.

As their name suggests, they also share a fondness for more sinful pleasures, acknowledged here in their exquisitely camp delivery of the 1930s ditty ‘Smoke Rings’ (recently rediscovered by k.d. lang), a voluptuously tragic reprise of Patsy Cline’s ‘Three Cigarettes’ and the hilarious dirty-stopout’s anthem ‘Walk of Shame’, by Louisiana duo Truckstop Honeymoon.

The range of material also took in contemporary Americana, with covers of the Be Good Tanyas’ ‘Littlest Bird’ and Joan Osborne’s ‘St Teresa’, alongside Annie Lennox’s ‘Primitive’ and a dreamy setting of Ivor Cutler’s ‘Chestnut Tree’, plus the occasional cheeky interjection of reworked 1940s and 50s radio advertising jingles, singing the praises of Lucky Beer, Tempo Cigarettes and Sturdy Dinner Dog Food.

There was also a strong handful of songs written by the band themselves, with Black’s edgy, country-tinged ‘Draw the Line’, Rowan’s bittersweet jazzy ballad ‘The Way You Know You Do’ and Macleod’s rollicking, bluesy ‘Man of Many Valentines’ all standing out with equal distinction.

Such a spectrum of styles, eras and moods provided wonderfully broad scope for the trio to work their magic, complemented by aptly sparse, tautly applied accompaniment from Shooglenifty’s James Mackintosh on drums and David Donnelly on guitar and mandolin.

Some songs featured an individual lead; others were triple-layered throughout, but all were arrayed in stunningly beautiful, endlessly shifting patterns of harmonic colour and overlapping resonance, creating a sound both rarefied and sumptuous.

The Bevvy Sisters play the Classic Grand, Glasgow, on 24 January 2009, as part of Celtic Connections.

© Sue Wilson, 2008

Links

• The Bevvy Sisters