SEVENOAKS: Bessels Green Baptist Church

Friday 28th June, 2024

7:00pm

Event information

The aim of this evening is to demonstrate the wonderful depth of talent and diversity of style created by the many fine singer-songwriters that we are lucky to have here in the UK. To highlight this enviable position we have three accomplished exponents of the art, being:-

PAUL HANDYSIDE: Paul is a folk and roots singer songwriter whose song writing style has been compared to artists as varied as Chris Difford, Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello, Jeff Buckley and Martin Carthy. He began his musical career with eighties indie darlings Hurrah! and he went on to form the band Bronze in 2001, still embracing chiming, Rickenbacker driven pop, and increasingly alt country. His debut solo album Future's Dream, a combination of pop, country and modern-day hymns was released in 2007 to great reviews. Since then he has released a further three albums, all of them further developing his own brand of folk-tinged Americana, the Americana influences laden with elements of traditional British folk and sixties protest songs to produce his now well established and diverse musical palette. Paul will be joined by long time cohort Rob Tickell on guitar and dobro.

CHRIS CLEVERLY: Chris was born under a solstice moon, in the honeysuckle mysticism of a late 80s Midsummer; quiet and curious, saturnine and shy. Fast-forward three decades; four nationally acclaimed albums under his belt, and ringing endorsements from The Times, Telegraph and BBC6 Music, his boundary-shattering ‘Dream-Folk’ songwriting & astonishing fingerstyle guitar have placed him firmly among the new-wave of pioneering artists carving an uncharted path through the UK acoustic landscape .A true guitar-man, his elaborate alternate tunings, percussive rhythms and ambient sound design flow beneath a visceral lyrical style inspired by the lo-fi American greats, Elliott Smith & Sufjan Stevens. With serene calm and warm humour, his replenishing live show occupies the space between a concert performance and a yoga nidra meditation.

MIKE REINSTEIN: In 1965, of course, Mike wanted to be Bob Dylan. So he got a guitar and a teacher. His first performances beyond the sitting rooms at parties were in the early seventies when he co-founded Doris, a six-piece acoustic band which split soon after. He continued to write songs and perform, honing his skills, and eventually he started to do solo floor spots at the Hove Folk Club. Robb Johnson, who runs the club, suggested that he might like to record an album, leading to a partnership that has produced two more excellent albums plus several specifically recorded for young listeners. There is a remarkable variety in all his songs; some are funny, some are poignant and some are both. All show a great deal of craft, both in their composition and delivery. Mike is one of the wittiest, most articulate performers around, he is an excellent and thoughtful songwriter, erudite, polished and intelligent.

We are sure that you will enjoy the music produced by these three seasoned and skilful artists and we hope that this will lead you to investigate for yourselves the many other excellent singer-songwriters that are plying their trade here in the UK. You will be surprised at the talent that is out there!

Note: We realise that this is a male dominated line up; to try and incorporate both male and female artists in the same night is next to impossible. We aim to remedy this deficit by having a second night featuring exclusively female singer-songwriters in the near future.