What do Suede, Teenage Fanclub and Love & Money have in common?
The answer is a collaborative project formed by Bernard Butler (Suede), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and James Grant (Love & Money). Butler, Blake & Grant to be precise.
Three talented musicians as both guitarists and singers. Each with a rich back catalogue of songs to fall back on. Brought together initially to play a couple of acoustic gigs a few years ago, their immediate bonding resulted in agreeing to appear more regularly together.
At these earlier gigs, the setlists were relatively straightforward affairs, with each leading on one of ‘their’ songs, while the other two backed them up.
Add in a couple of covers, The Monkees and Neil Young spring to mind, and you had a night’s entertainment all wrapped up and packaged for a captive audience.
However, for those lucky enough to attend these previous gigs, or those of James Grant and Bernard Butler as solo affairs or Norman Blake with Teenage Fanclub, the evening’s entertainment will always be enlightened by some sharp wit. It’s with such dry humour, that they make a direct connection with the audience, not something that happens at every gig.
At some point in 2024, the three of them decided, maybe as songwriters, it might be time to get together to record an album of new songs.
On Saturday and Sunday night, as part of the Frets Concerts series, the trio took to their stools on stage at The Strathaven Hotel to launch their eponymous album.
Ten tracks, three written by Butler, two by Blake, three by Grant, one a combination of Blake & Grant and the final track jointly written by all three.
Played, in almost recorded order, the exception being the instrumental, Rosus Posus, that introduced the band on to the stage.
Between re-tuning of guitars, each track was introduced by the ‘writer’, with tales told of how the track evolved, with Butler’s The Old Mortality eliciting a tangled thought process involving Sir Walter Scott, producing one of the biggest laughs of the night.
Acoustic guitars to the fore, beautiful harmonisation, a trademark of Teenage Fanclub in particular, run through both the album and the live setting. Bernard Butler on electric guitar is a joy to watch and listen to. Every note or chord perfectly pitched to complement the rhythmic strumming of Blake & Grant.
With a knowledge of the back catalogue of both Blake and Grant in particular, it is relatively easy to spot the songs they were lead writer for within the first few chords. While the songs written by Butler have a slightly heavier guitar sound with his own vocals offering a good counterpoint to the Scottish brogue of both Blake and Grant.
The audience reaction to each track played is heartfelt by the main characters and inevitably leads to even more interplay with the audience and each other.
Whether it be forgetting the track number, which side it was on, providing you purchased the vinyl at the merch desk of course, or who was to kick start the song, they had the audience eating out of their hands.
While there are three different writers, each with their own distinct musical characteristic, the songs blend in seamlessly with each other and it’s obvious how they have connected as both friends and bandmates.
They are entertainers and I’m sure many a night spent together playing or writing music has filled the room with laughter.
The same relaxed atmosphere ensured all the songs were listened to in almost total silence, awaiting the final strum on the guitar before applauding, but not for too long, in case the next witticism went unheard.
Butler, Blake & Grant are touring to promote the album and I can’t recommend a good evening’s entertainment with them enough.
Support Act
Jo Mango is a solo performer who has been on the scene for quite a while with albums released in both 2006 and 2012. There’s also a new album in the pipeline.
By her own admission, her songs tend to be low key, though there were witty stories behind each she played, from dealing with moths, not a subject that has graced too many albums I suppose, sea monsters and a more up-tempo song she wrote to help others during a musician in residency period of work with young people who weren’t feeling too great about their lives at the time.
A fine musician and singer, it was an apt opening to a veery acoustic focused evening.
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