Nils Lofgren heads to the Sage Gateshead whilst King Creosote celebrates Burns Night; While Nils will play a packed Sage Gateshead, King Creosote will celebrate Burns Night with a double Scots whammy.
Byline: Alan Nichol
Chicago-born musician Nils Lofgren will undoubtedly enthral the capacity crowd in Sage Gateshead's Hall 1 on Friday with his multiple talents.
At the time of writing, there were very few tickets remaining. The multi-instrumentalist/singer/composer/producer has a mammoth and varied back-catalogue to draw from and has featured in some of the very highest company.
He started his musical career as a talented five-year-old -- he played accordion, initially -- before studying classical and jazz in his youth.
Lofgren was also a competitive school-gymnast but music was to prevail and he soon switched to guitar (and piano) in order to play blues-rock/roots-rock, a move that ultimately resulted in him playing and singing on Neil Young's platinum-selling landmark album, After The Gold Rush (1970),
as a 19 year old.
He later appeared on three more of Young's albums over the next couple of decades but he is probably best-known for his work with Bruce Springsteen.
Lofgren has a 30-odd year association with "the Boss," played countless live shows with him (with Lofgren's trademark back-flip, in his younger days, a big crowd-pleaser) and has appeared on 10 of his albums.
There is not room here to do justice to his storied career but to demonstrate his musical reach he has also played with artists across a wide spectrum.
From his country-rock time with Crazy Horse (and his own band, Grin) he has recorded/played live with Crosby & Nash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Yo La Tengo, Lou Reed and Ringo Starr.
Another musician who started life in the North East corner of the USA is Canadian singer Oh Susanna (born Suzie Ungerleider) and she is in Cluny 2 on Sunday night.
When she was a young child, the family moved to Vancouver but she has been based in Toronto for several years now. Susanna was working in a library almost 20 years ago when she decided to make her career in music after making a self-recorded EP of her own songs.
Her early influences ranged from bluegrass maestro Bill Monroe and Hank Williams to Tom Waits but she found herself tagged to the "Alt.country" category.
Her later records featured friends like Ruth Moody (who was here last week). Adopting the stage name Oh Susanna (perhaps from Stephen Foster's celebrated minstrel song), she released her debut album in 1999 to widespread international acclaim.
That record included the help of friends from bands like Cowboy Junkies, Wilco and Blue Rodeo. Oh Susanna's...
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