Nell Bryden Live

Nell Bryden, Phantom Limb
The Fleece, Bristol, May 26, 2010

Wreathed in smiles from the moment she took to the stage, Nell Bryden didn’t really have to tell us that she is having the time of her life. The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Brooklyn has a lot to be happy about. After years of relentless gigging, she has been creating something of a buzz with her infectious performances and a self-penned song book that seems to merge almost every facet of American popular music, including Dixieland jazz, blues, bluegrass, country, rock and soul. Her debut album garnered the sort of reviews she could have only dreamed about and she not only managed to make the BBC Radio 2 playlist but even met and played for Sir Terry Wogan.
It was probably just as well her career seems to be on such a high because a less confident artist might have felt a bit put out at having to go on after an opening set by the always very exciting Phantom Limb. Warming up with a home town gig before heading off to California to record their new album, they used their short set to introduce some new songs, of which Grave Train certainly raised the hair on the back of the neck. Their version of You Don’t Miss Your Water, which owed more to the Byrds than the William Bell original, was remarkable. Yolande Quartey was in fine voice, the musicians in the band were as inventive as ever and the three-part harmonies were so close we could have been listening to a bluegrass band. It was a typically spellbinding performance and the groans from the disappointed audience when they announced their final song spoke volumes.
The bubbly Nell Bryden didn’t seem at all fazed at the prospect of following a band far too good to be a support act. With just the backing of a bass player and drummer, and beating the life out of her vintage Gibson guitar, she opened with the rocky-gospel style title track of her debut album, What Does It Take, before slipping into the heartstring-tugging ballad The Only Life I Know. Looking like a 1950s starlet, the New Yorker seems to wear her retro musical influences as openly as she does her liking for past time fashion. Helen’s Requiem, for instance, was very much in the Patsy Cline mould as was Not Like Loving You, although the latter had distinct echoes of Dusty Springfield. The tune of the sexy but very fast Late Night Call was uncomfortably close to the traditional jugband standard Salty Dog Blues while Bo Diddley wouldn’t have had any problems recognising the riff behind the new song Soundtrack.
There were two covers in the set-list, a laid-back version of Springsteen’s I’m On Fire and a very fine and forcefully sung version of St Teresa, Joan Osborne’s song about a destitute woman trying to support herself and her baby through prostitution. Her version of House Of The Rising Sun was sung from the heart and she managed to breathe a lot of new life into the old song.
Songs like Where The Pavement Ends, Green Dress and Meridian showed just how well she crafts lyrics and that she can tell stories really well. She closed the show with a bright jazzy romp Tonight before returning on her own for a really impressive version of Robert Johnson’s classic Hellhound On My Trail that gave her the chance to show us the full power and immense range of her stunning voice and show for the first time that actually she is a fine guitarist. It did not, however, manage to wake up the man slumped in a chair at the back of the venue, but undoubtedly that said more about him than it did Nell Bryden’s music or her performance. She was then joined by her drummer and bass player and they closed with the almost rockabilly Second Time Around, her latest single.
Nell Bryden may not be breaking new ground and her music is so retro that you do wonder if she has the broad enough appeal to achieve the mainstream success being suggested by the music biz on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet, if honest to goodness talent, a great voice which she uses extremely well without the need for vocal gimmicks, and the ability to put on a vibrant energetic and highly enjoyable show are anything to go by then she is going to be around for a lot longer than just the second time around. Keith Clark