Music with a Message at St Mary’s. We are delighted to announce an evening with Charlie Dore, whose folk/country acoustic style carries a wonderful voice and perceptive and acerbic lyrics. Her material has been recorded by Tina Turner, George Harrison and Celine Dion. Charlie will be coming to Bottesford on Saturday 23rd March with her award winning album Dark Matter and will be joined by the virtuoso double bass player Gareth Huw Davies.

As St Mary’s broadens its ambition to be a champion of creativity and enjoyment, we are hosting a number of evenings of acoustic music, performed by talented singer-songwriters whose take on life has the ability to make people laugh, cry, rage and wonder.

“Dark Matter…an amazingly astute, moving, intelligent and connected songwriter…a voice like Kate McGarrigle meets Dory Previn. Wonderful. ” Mike Harding

“A gift for melody, brave, poignant, entertaining, original.” Guardian ****

In a multi-instrumental evening of ‘intriguingly other’ eclectic folk, bursting with earworms and crunchy lyrics, they’ll dip into favourites from Charlie’s past albums as well as sharing stories and original acoustic versions of hits she has written for others, including George Harrison and Jimmy Nail. Charlie has written platinum selling hits for other artists but she still keeps the best songs for herself. And there’s always a possibility of a new angle on her own song, Pilot of the Airwaves – still a national radio favourite.

With Gareth Huw Davies Charlie explains “he’s a multi-instrumentalist with emphasis on bowed instruments and piano, so working with him as a duo gives us both the chance to experiment with arrangements. I’m really looking forward to it enormously!” Charlie has worked with Gareth since he guested with her band at the Wexford Festival in 2005. Since then, in between playing with everyone from Chrissie Hynde to Sir Willard White, Gareth has contributed his 5 string double-bass playing and singing to many of Charlie’s larger gigs, including Celtic Connections, Edinburgh and FolkEast festivals. Charlie’s latest album, the double award-winning Dark Matter features Gareth on most tracks and once she discovered his other considerable talents on piano, cello and vocals she made a mental note to experiment with some new arrangements in a live context. Charlie says “It’s been very inspiring to take songs I’m used to playing one way, turn them upside down and start from the bass end, basically from the bottom up. And with a 5-string bass, that’s one big bottom!”

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