Well here we are another Monday and another lookback over my weeks musical livestream viewings. Things have been opening up slowly and some people have returned to their day jobs so have not been streaming so often and this has reduced my choices but nonetheless there are still some great entertainers portraying themselves on different platforms.
Mondays highlight for me is the normal weekly live stream from The Rising, the theme for the week was people that had influenced Chris Logan and Chantelle McAteer in their musical career and with a very varied selection of tunes in their own inimitable style it is encouraging to see an established song can take on that little twist and still sound fantastic and one such song that really impressed me was their interpretation of Bryan Adams âRun To Youâ. The weekly stream as a production is always exceptional and the quality is always spot on. Chris playing the guitar and Chantelle singing along with their chat and banter just fills the time perfectly. I was a bit late to include Volume 12 of the UK Country Collective collection in last weekâs lookback, but I canât let these collaborations go without a mention. Tim Prottey-Jones has come up with some beauties and Volume 12 was no different. A cover of Sam Cookeâs âA Change Is Gonna Comeâ and mixed with Chris Stapletonâs âTennessee Whiskyâ featuring (a lady thatâs going to feature a lot in this weekâs comments) Kezia Gill and a variety of musicians really is something to behold.
An extra appearance this week of another livestream favourite Jade Helliwell happened on Tuesday night featuring loads of her own music from her early days right through to the present and these songs show why Jade has established herself very well on the UK scene. Along with Luke Thomas on guitar the two of them took us through a wide range of tracks and although Luke has rarely played some of the older material he has a knack of picking up the tune quickly and even throwing in a few god guitar licks to fill out the songs. Glen Mitchell and SaraBeth Swagerty always provide a great Tuesday night listening and viewing with their stream from the sofa. It was good to see Glen feeling a lot better after his not being well and that SaraBeth has managed to stay clear of the virus also. These two have a remarkable back catalogue of music both individually and also as Royal South and there is always a great mix of music on their stream which also includes some covers. Robyn Taylor concluded my night of watching with her request sequence. Robyn has been another stalwart of lockdown and is another entertainer who can turn her hand to many genres and artists and my personal favourite on the night was one of her own tracks âStop My Heartâ.
Wednesday night featured Samantha Lloyd and this young lady is casually rising through the ranks with her performances and she has such a great cheeky personality to go along with these performances. Alan West has for a long time been on my list of enjoyable artists, but I had never had the time to catch his livestreams, so it was a pleasure to catch last weekâs one from his music room. To me Alan is very much old school but has a very distinctive country sound and it was a show I very much enjoyed, and I am sure I will catch more of him in the coming weeks.
Thursday night saw the weekly return of Jade and Luke and these two are always a delight to watch. There is so much chemistry between them and with their very varied selection of tracks from viewers requests makes this another must watch stream. Iâm not sure who winds who up the most, but it does make the stream fly past quicker than expected. Buckle & Botts threw open their platform to American artist Kaitlyn Baker and sounded great from home along with her guitarist boyfriend Joe provided a great night of music with her own songs and few covers. Kaitlyn was scheduled to play a few events in the Uk this year and we await to see if any of the remaining ones can go ahead.
Friday always starts with the morning sketch from my Lockdown champion Kezia Gill and this weeks one was a stonker advertising her stream at night with a take of Nuns On The Run with backing vocals from the Lloyd Hughes choir. Another act I have always meant to catch up on is Chloe Jones and I took the opportunity for this on Friday. Laura Oakes again showed why I love her singing when she took over the Buckle and Boots platform. This lady has such a majestic voice with a range of music that keeps you glued to the screen for as long as she performs and is one person I hate to miss when she is on tour and I was personally gutted to miss her last trip to Scotland.
Saturday saw our very own Scottish Lady of Country Katee Kross hit the road down to Ayrshire and give a livestream from her mum and dads home. Along with Ross the music was everything we have come to expect from Katee. Katee has a knack of coming up some striking covers and this week was no different with a fantastic cover of Elvisâs âLove Me Tenderâ which featured along with many of her own songs. For people that havenât heard this lady very often I would recommend looking through her ever increasing catalogue of songs. Scott Ashworth appeared with a Last Minute Live stream and as usual he served up another great set with originals and covers and as Iâve done with a few artists this week Iâve selected one of the covers I enjoyed most which was a cover of Stapletonâs âBroken Halosâ. Saturday night just highlighted to me the amount of talent we have in Scotland and especially in my local area and a stream from a town not far from home had 3 generations of the same family performing on Lock down Buddies. Diane Barbour is an entertainer from Keith and along with her mother, sister and daughter put on a fantastic show for nearly 2 hours. Diane has also been inundated with requests from a few of us to do a cover of Cams âBurning Houseâ. Although she has the backing track for it, she had never learnt it but rectified that with a Sunday morning video of her version. Dianeâs mum Patricia has been entertaining in the area for some time now and did some old-time country tracks and finished off with her version of Cowboys Sweetheart. The youngest member of the family to perform was Chloe Barbour and she and her mum did a great cover of âNeed You Nowâ as well as her own version of Jolene.
Sunday saw the weekly Songs and Stories Collective with Sarah Yeo, Donna Marie, and Tennessee Twin. Their guest this week was Cheley Tackett from America. Each week there is a theme chosen and each of the 3 main acts have to do a cover and a self-penned song within the theme and itâs great to see what they come up with. Kelsey Bovey was live on Lock Down Buddies and she is another of the up and coming Uk artists. Her single âNot Scared Anymore is a sure sign of great things to come. Another of the Tim PJ UK Country Collective collaborations came out on Sunday and boy is it amazing, with support from Emma Jade they have taken Lonestarâs âAmazedâ to another level.
As always, I am very thankful to all the above mentioned artists for providing us with some great music and streams over the last 15 weeks and I would encourage everyone to support them all in whichever way you can.
Now you have probably noticed that I have missed out my weekly gush about Kezia Gill but there is no way I could. On Friday night her weekly stream had been dubbed as Movie Week 2 and the requests for songs had her researching some great songs. I always have a great word to say about Kezia and how she adapts songs and this weekâs stunner was a cover of This Is Me from The Greatest showman. Friday nights stream was interrupted with great intention by the people Kezia describes as her #Fridaynightcrew who after some great work over the last few weeks by Andrea Isaac who had us all send in a photo with assigned words and put together a video to show our thanks to Kezia and Lloyd for their outstanding performances. The emotion it caused to both Kezia and Lloyd created a wave of flooded households across the country by the looks of the comments. To see over 200 watching each week on the main stream proves to Kezia how much she means to us all and it is with great pleasure to say that there has been a Facebook page created for anyone that feels they would like to join in the celebration of this fantastic artist. This can be found as Kezia Gill #Fridaynightcrew.
As always until next time have a great week and stay safe.