Hello again for another weekly lookback at the great music livestreams I’ve been keeping an eye on. Again, this week the early part of the week had been a bit quieter with a few of the usual streamers taking a bit of time to themselves.
Mondays livestream champions The Rising took advantage of their Irish roots to treat us to a week of Irish songs from through the ages and included a few great covers along with their own music from some of the classics songs to some of the more quirky ones like Hit The Diff. Chantelle puts her own wee spin on some and the craic is always good when her and Chris are working out the history behind the songs.
Tuesday night saw a stranger appear when Jade added an extra stream with a short set on The Sound Lounge before I headed over to watch the weekly session from SaraBeth and Glen Mitchell. As always, these guys just keep going until all requests. Both SaraBeth and Glen are great artists with a fantastic catalogue of their own music and as a group along with Vickie Vaughan as Royal South.
Wednesday featured Alan West singing some great older tracks that really take me back to when I started going out and listening to live music all these years ago. One comment from Alan was that he felt he knew me because of all the artists of yesteryears Uk scene that I knew. Morganway as I’ve said before have really made a big leap in the Uk scene and they appeared as part of a stream via Greennote and Talentbanq and it was great to catch part of their set before I caught my final act of the night featuring an act I’ve never heard before. Queeva is a teenage Irish Country singer songwriter based in America and I was very impressed by what I heard. She was at ease singing her own songs and also took on a few covers and for those that have never seen her before then I would steer you to YouTube to give her a wee listen.
Thursday nights belong to the livestream from Jade Helliwell accompanied by Luke and this stream has all the bangers jade started off with and her usual mix of covers and latest tracks mixed with some great banter between herself, Luke and other family members in the room. Buckle and Boots gave their platform over to Lauren Jenkins who lists herself as a country, rock, Americana artist and all these influences come through in her music and she can certainly handle the guitar with ease to go with her great voice. Another of my American friends Jessica Lynn was utterly fantastic on a stream in aid of The Guitar Center Music Foundation. Raising money to help support struggling artists there was also an auction for the new guitar she was using on the night. Jessica has had all her worldwide gigs cancelled for the year but to her credit she has taken the chance to record a full album during lockdown which she wouldn’t have been able to do if she had been touring for 5 months. One of her latest songs “Run To” is a beautiful song and I think it could end up being one of my songs of the year.
Fridays seem to be the day many artists release new music and so it proved as Emilia Quinn released her new EP “Firecracker” and a cracker it most certainly is. Now I’m not someone who is very good at taking songs and reviewing them I will leave that to the experts but what I’ve listened to, to me it is a cracker of an EP. Emilia streamed a virtual launch including chats with producers and musicians involved with the EP. I actually thought my clocks had gone a bit wonky when I turned my pc on as the Friday night queen of lockdown streams was on early but it was a unscheduled stream from Kezia Gill with a virtual pub gig before normality returned with the usual 8pm start to the Pour Me A Strong One session which this week was a Queens of Country special and featured songs from the likes of Lorretta Lynn through to Gretchen Wilson and the Chicks along with a couple of her own songs. As normal this UK Queen OF Country Kezia was superb at whatever she sang and can do no wrong in my book.
Saturday was a very quiet day for me as I had other things to do but it was great to catch Scott Ashworth popping in for a livestream and he came up with some brilliant great tunes both of his own and some covers.
Sunday looked like it was going to be another quiet day, but it certainly didn’t prove to be. Laura Oakes turned back time to the 60s and wow her interpretation of Percy Sledges “When A Man Loves A Woman” was something else. Laura has to make an album featuring some of her songs from her lockdown sessions. The Rising featured on the Get Ready To Rock page with a charity stream of their own music raising funds for Parkinson’s UK. The Songs and Stories Collective had taken a week off but Tennessee Twin featured on the Live Country Sessions platform with a great set featuring their own music and I think one of their best covers featuring the song “Little Dive Bar In Dahlonega” from Ashley McBryde. A stream from Destination Country finished off my viewing for the weekend with two fantastic acts, one from the Uk and one from America. Both acts have a quite different style of music but are very much acts that I have become a great fan of. Morganway are based in the Norwich area and have an incredibly unique sound which includes Folk, Rock and Americana sound. They are a six-piece band featuring brothers Callum and Kieran Morgan with the lovely vocals of SJ Morgan and fantastic fiddle playing and additional vocals from Nicole Terry. Lockeland are an American based trio who are very much on the rise on the Uk touring circuit and their latest release “Made For Mornings” is a great track and the guys come across with some beautiful harmonies.