Fellow Afterworders who live within reach of hipster joints in that Lahndahn, despite my provincial location and my disdain for the alleged delights of our capital city, I feel it is my duty, nay privilege, to give you good news.
The attached link will take you to a place where you can book some tickets for what I reckon will be one of the most intimately satisfying musical events of your year.
I’ve seen Hattie sing and play. She is a part – the essential front-of-stage part – of the occasional band that calls itself Hejira. They tour a set built entirely from the Joni repertoire as represented within the double-LP called Shadows And Light. Their performances, and Hattie’s sensitive and confident delivery of Joni’s lines and chords, are a wonderful thing. In this gig she will be singing her own material and you will hear why she was invited to sing and play with Hejira.
I can’t recommend the opportunity to see this gig highly enough. I’d be there myself if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ll unavoidably be 125 miles away at the time.
Don’t say I didn’t tell you.
https://dice.fm/event/qdrp9-hattie-whitehead-22nd-may-servant-jazz-quarters-london-tickets
I saw her a couple of weeks ago at The Stables. I couldn’t agree more with Vulpes’ assessment. She and the band are just sensational. She wisely makes the choice to not be a Joni impersonator (though in the upper octaves she’s very close) but is a stunning vocalist in her own right. Don’t miss it!
I’ve seen Hejira a few times now (drummer Rick Finlay is a friend) and both she and the band get better and better.
At first she was following Joni’s characteristics very closely, it seemed to me, but as they’ve all got more confident and relaxed with performing the material, she’s sounding more individual in the way she sings it.
She has a truly stunning voice. Her recorded material that I’ve heard is very good too. I’ll be going to this.
I saw several years ago and thought she was great. I would definitely go to this, if it weren’t for the fact that I already have tickets to see Wesley Stace that night.
If anyone’s interested in catching Hejira live this year, here’s their current gig list.
https://www.peteoxley.com/gigs
Hope to get to either Newcastle or the Leyburn.
If you need further convincing of her talents, try browsing her Bandcamp presence. You can listen to her songs there and marvel at her superb vocal accuracy, enunciation and control. You’ll see little mug shots of your correspondent on her pages there.
https://hattiewhitehead.bandcamp.com/album/mechanism