Hannah TitleWell, that’s another one for the bucket list. It’s taken a long time but I’ve finally had a conversation with someone who began a sentence with ‘Y’all…’, so thank you very much Hannah Aldridge from Muscle Shoals, Alabama for finally putting that one right for me. I was at Green Note to see Don Gallardo and Hannah on the last night of the UK tour to promote their respective current albums, Don’s “Hickory” and Hannah’s “Razor Wire”. Don’s band for the tour has been Travis Stock (playing bass, mandolin and guitar) and two musicians from the UK on keyboards and pedal steel, while Hannah has been delivering a stripped-back solo acoustic set of songs from her debut album, plus a bit of new material as well.

As always, the Green Note audience on this sold-out night was attentive and appreciative giving both artists a warm response. Don Gallardo played a set featuring songs from his new album including “Diamonds and Gold”, “Carousel”, “Ophelia, We Cry (Ode to Levon Helm)”, “The North Dakota Blues” and the superb “Down in the Valley”. Don’s easy geniality between songs created a warm atmosphere that was perfectly suited to the intimacy of the venue and the set came to a perfect close with Hannah joining the band on a cover of the Neil Young/CSNY song “Helpless”; it was one of many spine-tingling moments on the night.

Hannah Aldridge’s songs on her debut album “Razor Wire” are intensely personal and confessional; at times they’re brutally honest and even harrowing. The band arrangements on the album aren’t obtrusive, so it’s relatively easy to see how the songs would work as unplugged versions in a live setting, but Hannah also has a few curve-balls to throw, which is impressive under the circumstances; she’s been ill throughout the tour and has just started to recover and get her voice back to full power.

From the start of the set, Hannah pitched her between-song delivery somewhere between the real Hannah and the more strident, harder Hannah who appears on the cover of the album; you think it’s mostly a stage persona, but you probably wouldn’t push your luck to find out. She had a setlist prepared but after the opener “You Ain’t Worth the Fight”, all bets were off as the audience had their say and Hannah adjusted the dynamics of the set accordingly. “Rails to Ride” (from 2013) and the superb new song, “Gold Rush” were the only songs in the set not featured on “Razor Wire”.

The entire set was absolutely spellbinding as Hannah poured her soul into “Old Ghost”, “Razor Wire” and “Black and White”, but two songs stood out, for different reasons, from the rest of the set. “Parchman”, unlike most of Hannah’s songs, was inspired by something outside her personal experience; it’s about a female prisoner waiting to be executed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (known colloquially as Parchman Farm) for the murder of her abusive husband. The song pulls no punches, and had the audience enthralled throughout. For the final song of the set, “Howlin’ Bones”, Hannah left the security of the stage, and amplified vocals, to take the song direct to the audience, moving around the room to deliver a raw and genuinely unplugged version of a powerful song. You couldn’t call it easy listening, but it was raw and compulsive.

Although the entire evening was packed with lovely moments, Hannah Aldridge’s set confirmed my suspicion that she not only has a gift for turning life into art, but she’s also a hugely gifted and empathic performer who can project the emotional power of her songs. We may have missed out on the Jackson Browne cover “These Days” on the night, but this was a stunning solo performance of songs of the highest quality.

Watch out for her next UK tour, but check out “Razor Wire” in the meantime.