Joe Brown
'It's a while since I bin 'ere' observed Joe Brown as he ambled onto the stage at the Kings on Friday night.
Two-and-a-half hours later, it felt that, in one sense at least, the particular surroundings were irrelevant.
For any Joe Brown concert has the intimacy of a living room - almost as if the fella had invited you round for a bit of friendly banter which, off-the-cuff, he'd intersperse by grabbing whichever stringed instrument happened to be closest to hand and knocking out a good old tune.
And after more than 50 years in show business, he's got a few of those.
Most got a rendition from the archetypal chirpy Cockney who hardly seems to have aged since he first burst into the charts with The Darktown Strutters' Ball at a time in which Harold Macmillan was still prime minister and the average house would set you back all of 2,530.
Joe's pad in Henley-on-Thames cost slightly more ('dearest place to live in the country before I moved in!' he unconvincingly informed us) - a fruit of this multi-talented showman's successful career.
Alternating between electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle and trademark ukelele, he rocked us with A Picture of You, It Only Took a Minute and Sea of Heartbreak.
But arguably, he left the best to last with his obligatory encore finale. I'll See You in my Dreams is a truly beautiful song that has been wonderfully reprised over the years by such greats as Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby.
Surely none finer though than Joe Brown's simple uke-accompanied version.
It was a lovely end to an enjoyable show.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 11 February 2012
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