For the genre sensitive among us – trigger alert – this wasn’t a jazz gig. I went along because I know what a fine player Anthony Toner is. He has played the blues for instance in this same venue with Ronnie Greer. And he has a strong affinity with words, appearing memorably here too with the great Fermanagh poet Frank Ormsby.
As day turned to night, looking out on to the river Erne whose gentle waters you could see through the windows, Ormsby’s ‘Fireflies’ echoed:
The lights come on and stay on under the trees.
Frank Ormsby
Visibly a whole neighbourhood inhabits the dusk,
so punctual and in place it seems to deny
dark its dominion.
The idea here was less dark or cry in your beer country-Americana than you’d have reckoned at first blush. Nevertheless, most of the songs were reliably maudlin and soul searching on one level or another. Not an evening at all for rednecks mercifully it proved a setting that let Toner wield his lap steel a bit twangingly as well as electric guitar and step back a little. He shared vocals duties with Mark Crockard and the pair were accompanied interestingly most significantly on mandolin by Marcus McAuley – you can hear them together on a Bandcamp track called ‘I’m The One In Blue’ on 2022’s Hotel America. But the Boondocks as far as I know haven’t recorded so far.
‘I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve’
Shaped by two sets there were a helluva lot of songs delivered. A great rendition in the first set of John Prine song ‘Spanish Pipedream’ (1971) had Crockard and Toner belting out the chorus with gusto was one that stood out.
Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try an’ find Jesus on your ownJohn Prine
The evening also contained a strong Glen Campbell flavour with Jimmy Webb classics ‘Galveston,’ ‘Wichita Lineman’ and ‘By the Time I Get To Phoenix’ one chief strand. Toner’s vocal on ‘Galveston’ topped all.
The lonesome side of Crockard’s voice tugs a heart string and his guitar playing supported the vocals well. Right at the end he played some harmonica.
More interesting instrumentally was Marcus McAuley’s homespun mandolin playing rather than his guitar strumming when he alternated.
I kept thinking of Van Morrison’s ukulele playing on Keep it Simple song ‘Behind the Ritual’ when listening to McAuley. It fulfils a similar role.
Other highlights? Oh definitely the treatment of the Boudleaux Bryant Grievous Angel (1974) song synonymous with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris ‘Love Hurts’. On ‘Brass Buttons’ from the same album you could sense the audience practically melt into the number.
- Boondocks dates coming up include Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick on 23 May and American Bar, down in Sailortown (a place Toner has put his stamp on in song) – Belfast, 22 June.
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