It’s always nice when someone gets in touch and offers you an unsolicited review of a gig or album. Graham Jackson works in artist services, looking after artists touring the UK among other things. He’s also a very interesting guy to chat with – he has a few stories. This is his take on Isabella Coulstock supporting The Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra at Warwick Arts Centre.

21st May 2023 – Warwick Arts Centre – Jools Holland with support by Isabella Coulstock

A reflection on a first visit to the impressive 1,450 capacity Warwick Arts Centre that is modern, spacious, scrupulously clean with facilities including a bar/restaurant to match.

The auditorium itself is wonderful. Despite its sizeable capacity, there is a feel of intimacy as the balconies wrap themselves around itself even going behind the stage area.

The time for the opening artist, Isabella Coulstock, is approaching and so refreshing to see the auditorium is near full in anticipation of the show, the Jools Holland audience showing a respect and interest in the support artist, perhaps with some naivety and curiosity.

The scene is set. The lights dim except for the one white spotlight, the announcement made, “Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome Isabella Coulstock” and as she walks on with her guitar, the audience breaks into spontaneous applause. Then silence as Isabella prepares herself.

With confidence and a big smile, Isabella starts her set with ‘Nice Just Ain’t A Good Colour’ which serves to give an immediate impact and connection with the audience. They are listening and listening with genuine interest, impressed from what they are seeing and hearing. It works – rapturous applause.

A set of six self-penned songs, from the very first written ‘Crazy Cowboy’ to the brand new ‘Riverside’, each appealing to the audience whatever the tempo, ultimately finishing with some audience participation which they duly join in singing and clapping to ‘Honky Tonk Beer’.

Isabella’s wonderful pitch-perfect vocals and accurate guitar play were ‘talking’ to and enchanting the audience, interspersed with short song introductions and thanks to Jools Holland and his team. It was the audience that was thankful, mutterings heard through the show such as “wow, what a voice” and “she is something else”, even comments after saying “the new KT Tunstall”.

Isabella Coulstock is like one of those rare beautiful orchids that takes time to develop and when the time and conditions are right, it blooms into a wonderful show of colour and panache – the show proved that the time and conditions are right for Isabella.

Full Set List:

• Nice Just Ain’t A Good Colour
• Borderline
• Broken
• Riverside
• Crazy Cowboy
• Honky Tonk Beer

Twenty albums in twenty years; that’s not bad going, particularly when you have a day job fronting up for Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. You probably know that Ruby Turner has a fabulous voice, but she’s much more than the chanteuse with Jools Holland; Ruby Turner is a genuine British soul phenomenon with a career stretching back into the mid-eighties and some astonishing live and recorded performances (if you haven’t already heard it, check out her version of “Stay With Me Baby”). So, what’s the deal with Ruby’s latest album, “Love Was Here”?

A couple of things; this is mainly about Ruby recognising the influence of the people she listened to as she grew up and trying to create the feel and grooves of those artists without creating carbon copies. The second thing is that Ruby has pulled together a fabulous soul band (mainly from Sheffield, a very fertile ground for British soul musicians). The band is: Kat Eaton (backing vocals), Nick Atkinson (guitars), Joe Glossop (keys), Jeremy Meek (bass) and John Blease (percussion) – Google any one of them and see just who they’ve worked with. This is a quality outfit, and they do what quality outfits do; they create arrangements that support the song and the vocal perfectly without any fuss or showboating.

The songwriting team is Kat Eaton and Nick Atkinson and between them they pull off the very clever trick of creating a groove and style that suggests a particular artist while still sounding fresh and original. Of course they have a huge advantage in that the songs are being delivered by one of the UK’s finest soul voices. The songs and the arrangements pull in structural elements from the styles they’re emulating; there are a lot of examples of the old gospel technique of call and response, not just with vocals but also between instruments as well. The other technique that appears a lot is unison playing in various instrumental configurations.

You can listen to the songs yourself and work out which song is influenced by which musical hero; there are nods in the direction of Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, BB King and Ry Cooder mentioned in the sleeve notes but you’ll also find references to Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding (and probably many more if you dig deep enough). It’s a fitting tribute to the pioneers of soul.

“Love Was Here” actually started life as an EP with four or five songs, but gradually grew to full album status over a period of eighteen months. The songs hang together well and it’s generally a coherent piece of work, apart from the bonus track “Chasing Love” from the film “The Host”. It’s the only song that wasn’t recorded at The Foundry in Sheffield and it’s very different, featuring a haunting solo violin and orchestral backing. It’s not better or worse than the other ten songs; it’s just very different.

“Love was Here” is the sound of great musicians lovingly evoking their musical influences, fronted up by a great British soul voice and it’s out now.