James Yorkston: folkish spirit and superior poesy

While Franz Ferdinand were accepting their Mercury Music Prize 2004 Award - and it should have been The Streets, out of the nominated lot - another contender was creating some beautylicious music down the Shepherds Bush way. James Yorkston is his name and, backed by three Athletes, performed a set that took us to some places and emotions we’ve not been to in a while.

Hailing from the same part of the world - Fife rather than the urbanity of Ferdinand’s Glasgow - the number of extraordinary artists emerging from the Scottish landscape is staggering. And, of all the sonic adventurers Mr Yorkston appears to be a very distinctive artiste.

Occupying stage-centre positioned chair, he strummed his guitar [and a banjo] with passion, gusto and charisma not seen since… Tom Waits was young. Songs presented tonight are, despite shouts for tracks from his previous releases including the debut LP ‘Moving Up Country’, from the forthcoming album ‘Just Beyond The River’.

And, it is a collection that trawls far and wide, encompassing many a genre with a hint of folk that Yorkston is usually associated with but this is too-narrow a description. Yorkston composes, records and performs music that is clearly AOP - Adult Orientated Pop, with all due respect. His oeuvre is classic songwriting that bridges heritage [Caledonian, obviously] and post-modernity for melodies that sound like instant evergreens.

With audience in a spontaneous sit-down [despite lack of chairs], they all inhaled this music that heart-warmingly glowed like Concorde’s jets once upon a time. Backed by a weird line-up of double-bass/banjo player, accordionist/pianist and drummer/backing vocalist, original songs such as ‘Surf Song’, ‘Banjo #1’, ‘Banjo #2’ were mixed with re-arranged standards, the case being the rafters-interfering ‘The Snow It Melts The Soonest’.

There was no special décor, neither any mind paid to fashion and image because this 32-year-old Scotsman comes from the school where aspiration to write quality songs is the uppermost… He is a troubadour who should cross over into the mainstream due to great songwriting and a very assertive stage-persona with a sense of humour. He joked that he had done an album of Mike and the Mechanics’ [playing down the road at SB Empire] covers but the record company told him to get on with it!? [We’d love to hear it, for sure - Ed Chief.]

The man has got so many great songs that his set-list far outstripped the time allocated and he had to cut the show short, very apologetically, due to the curfew. That was the only regret on the night but it will, like many others, make us go back at the first opportunity.
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~ Our interview with James Yorkston will be published next week. ~