THE GREATEST TRACKS OF YESTERYEAR BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE IN HAMPTON HILL
Put a blindfold on and step into this ‘concert hall’ of fame and your rusty ears will be awash with the familiar sounds of yesteryear.
One historic track from memory lane after another from the 1970’s including James Taylor and Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, Don Maclean, America, Mamas & Papas, Bread and Crosby, Young, Stills & Nash.
Remove the blindfold to see yourself amongst a sell-out crowd of 180 at St James’s Church in
Hampton Hill and a spectacular set of colour and sound and a band called Earth and Rain & American Pie, a brilliant five-piece acoustic fronted by Paul Prem Nadama.
To all intents and purposes they are a tribute band but somehow their individual voices morph seamlessly into those distinctive voices of the original songwriters and singers without trying to imitate dress or mannerisms.
Their repertoire is focussed on the 70’s so it is no surprise to see this particular audience and its average age ( I was born in 1956) word perfect for classics like You’ve Got A Friend, You’re So Vain, American Pie, So Far Away, I Feel the Earth Move, San Francisco and Horse with No Name.
Paul is the frontman – he has to be with a name like that – playing guitar and offering up mesmerising but gentle vocals from these superstars of the same era – James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon all recording in the same Los Angeles studios and helping each other out in 1971.
Sophie Langham is the voice of Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon offering up beautiful tribute versions of their classics without trying to simply do an impression and she plays the flute too.
Vikas Botsford was on keyboards and came into his own with a contribution of Bread’s David Gates’s version of Make it with You. Al Innes was on percussion, Derek Huff on bass and Simon Taylor on saxophone.
While pleasantly drowning this audience in nostalgia, the music was accompanied by a parallel narrative of the music-rich period taking in Woodstock, how Simon & Garfunkel once performed as Tom & Gerry and Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain was about Warren Beatty and/or Mick Jagger and not her friend James Taylor and plenty of other gossipy titbits too….
If you have the chance to catch this splendid act do so, as it will bring back great memories and make you feel good…
