One of my favourite singers of the last 20 years or so has to be Cara Dillon. I first heard her when she sang on the closing credits of Billy Connolly's World Tour of Ireland, Wales and England television series. I bought a copy of her self-titled debut album and got a ticket to see her supporting Indigo Girls at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh in May 2002. She was accompanied by her partner Sam Lakeman on piano and his brother Seth on tenor guitar, violin and backing vocals.
I had another chance to see her at the end of that month at The Tolbooth in Stirling. Not knowing my way around the town it took me a while to find the venue so I arrived slightly out of breath minutes before Cara came on stage. It was another wonderful performance and I stayed on at the end as she and Sam came out front to sell CDs. As she had only released the one album I ended up buying a second copy, which she signed for me, and we had a chat about how amazing Indigo Girls had been.
In 2005 my partner Sam and I moved down to Lancaster from Scotland. Our first gig was a festival at the village of Glasson Dock which is just a few miles down the coast from Lancaster. Guitarist Martin Simpson was headlining the Saturday afternoon concert supported by Sean Lakeman and his partner Kathryn Roberts. If this was typical of the folk gigs we could expect in the local area, well that certainly helped us to feel that we would enjoy living in North Lancashire. I found Sean and Kathryn’s email address and messaged them to say how much we’d enjoyed their set. Kathryn replied saying that they had enjoyed playing there and had made a few purchases at the Smokehouse in Glasson Dock though that resulted in their car smelling somewhat of fish by the time they had driven home to Devon that evening.
A couple of years later in November 2007 we made the trip up into Cumbria to the Old Laundry Theatre at Bowness-on-Windermere. It is an unusual venue as you go through the World of Beatrix Potter to get into the theatre. A local group by the name of Alternative Medicine provided support and they were followed by Cara and her band. All seemed to be going well but we became increasingly aware that Sam Lakeman was not happy with the sound. He kept making gestures to the guy on the sound desk but nothing the guy did seemed to satisfy Mr Lakeman. Even Cara tried to make some suggestions at one point but to no avail. Eventually one of the other members of the band left the stage and went up to the sound desk. I have to say that it sounded okay from where we were sitting. It turned out that the chap on the desk had been called in at the last minute as there had been some family emergency involving the band's usual sound man.
Being on the sound desk can be a thankless task. While Sam Lakeman stared daggers at the chap at the Old Laundry Theatre it was nothing compared to Hugh Cornwell on one occasion when I saw him in Galashiels. Hugh was not at all happy with the sound in his monitor and berated the chap on the sound desk for not being able to do anything about it. I'm sure I wasn't the only member of the audience who felt rather sorry for the guy, and I dread to think what Hugh said to him at the end of the gig.
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This piece of writing is from a folk music chapter which didn't make it into my book Drum Solos, Bottles and Bands which I self-published in 2012. It is available from Smashwords and I have a few paperback copies which I can let you have in return for a donation to a local charity.
Kathryn and Sean are out on tour during March and April. See their website for full gig listings.
