Clive Carroll Live

Clive Carroll
The Centre Stage, Bournemouth, May 6, 2010

For the third in their series of Guitar Night Specials, the Bournemouth Folk Club welcomed folk guitar virtuoso Clive Carroll, where the regulars were treated to a stunning evening of diverse and intricate fingerstyle guitar playing from a musical maestro. Clive, who demonstrates an exceptional understanding of the acoustic guitar, has toured extensively throughout Europe, the US and Australia and has worked with the likes of John Renbourn and Tommy Emmanuel. Clive now divides his time between orchestral work, writing film scores and his live shows which cover virtually every genre of music, from classical, Celtic, bluegrass, folk et al.
Showing no signs of jet-lag, having flown in from British Columbia the day before, Clive launched straight into a medley of The Kid From Clare, The Dance of Dolan’s and Humours of Tulla taken from his 2004 album THE RED GUITAR, which he followed up with an amazing rendition of Willie Brown’s Mississippi Blues. Having played recently at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Annual Convention, he then treated the audience to a demonstration of the guitar legend’s style and a few bars of Mr. Sandman. Changing styles completely, Clive retuned his guitar to sound like a lute to play a fifteenth century piece, The Frog Galliard before moving into classical mode with Asturias, written by Spanish classical composer Isaac Albeniz. Interestingly, this piece was used as the introduction for the Doors Spanish Caravan. A superb first set was brought to a close with the self-penned Oregon, a haunting tune taken from his latest offering LIFE IN COLOUR.
The second set was soon underway with the Promise of Spring, again written by Clive and taken from his first album SIXTH SENSE, and which was inspired by the music of Nick Drake. The beautiful Eliza’s Eyes, written for his daughter, was followed by a medley of Irish ‘doom and gloom’ music; Black Moon and Westward Move, both featured on THE RED GUITAR. Changing styles completely, Clive switched to the banjo for the most amazing version of Duelling Banjos, played Clive Carroll style, before continuing in the same vein with the favourite Shady Grove. This was scintillating stuff and the audience was totally transfixed as he acceded to a request with Threnody and then the fast moving Czardas before closing with One, again from his first album. To thunderous applause, Clive returned to encore with a most gorgeous Celtic melody The Choice Wife which he explained was really a ‘slip jig’.
Clive Carroll clearly enjoyed displaying his amazing talent and this proved to be yet another memorable evening. John Roffey