Venue:
St. George’s, Bristol
Date: 27/11/2025
Between Symarip and Tackhead on my shelves, tucked in between the skinhead ska and the, er, whatever Tackhead were, are some LPs from a woman who released her first solo album fifty years ago.
I’ve heard her sing a few times now. She’s sung with many people, she’s recorded with many people. She doesn’t play an instrument. She plays her voice. She inhabits songs like few singers I’ve heard. She has the rare and uncanny ability to deliver any song in a way that makes it her own.
Last night she sang with the two accompanists with whom I think I best enjoy her performance. They are celebrated jazz players, Iain Bellamy on mellifluous saxophone, and Huw Warren, making the most of St. George’s lovely Steinway. Together with the woman we’ve come to hear sing, these three took us through nearly two hours of stunning music. The songs we heard were chosen from several recorded sources across many years, but they all shared the same thing; unalloyed tenderness, tranquility and sympathetic delivery.
This trio go by the name of Quercus. Check them out if they are new to you. See if you can get to hear their version of ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’. It is devastatingly brilliant.
Every time I hear this woman sing, I fall in love with her all over again. Last night was no exception. I love June Tabor.
The audience:
Pin-drop quiet. Packed. Sold out. No gaps. Standing at the finish, clapping enthusiastically.
It made me think..
Golly, she’s still a force of nature at 78.
I checked back to my review – here – of their gig at St. G’s back in 2019 – I reported that the hall was not full that night; they are obviously doing something right. I hope they continue to plow this furrow.
June Tabor has an amazing voice. Don’t know Huw Warren but Ballamy is a really fine player. This sounds ace. 👍
Update – am listening to their second album and have just heard that Don’t Think Twice. Gorgeous. Why have I not heard this before?
I heard her live first at Guildfest one year, and then at the Colchester Arts Centre some years after that. Along with her extraordinary sonorous voice, so full of timbre, her mere presence is a thing of wonder and grace. Part of me is stll there in those audiences, hearing her sing 10,000 miles, King of Rome, All This Useless Beauty, All Our Trades Are Gone and Hard Love.
As part of my year of writing about music in 2017, I did a track a night on the album Aqaba. Such a treat to spend time with each separate song.
https://salwarpe.wordpress.com/category/aqaba/
I am glad she is still going, and still inspiring.
Mods – could someone please correct my slip of the fingers – I mistakenly typed Iain Ballamy as Iain Bellamy.
Like ‘Walliams’, ‘Ballamy’ just sounds wrong. Is it an affectation?
At least it’s not Buggamy.
It’s great she sings on. She looked very frail at Shrewsbury in the summer, guesting with Oysterband, on their last UK performance. Looked, as opposed to sounded, I should add.
On Thursday night she said her left knee was getting a good talking-to off-stage. I think it makes her look frail, as her stance alters to take the weight off it.
I saw her at an arts centre sort of place in Bracknell around the turn of this century. She was fab and Huw Warren was there on piano, providing superb accompaniment. Theirs is a very long and fruitful musical association.
Huw Warren seems to be the accompanist of choice for a fair few female singers, mainly in the jazz field. He seems to know how to do it well.
Went to see her in a tiny studio in the early days of Grampian TV where, if memory serves me well, she did three maybe four songs . Me and twenty five others were enthralled.
Although, TBH, despite the adulation from John Peel etc I’ve always found her records more worthy than totally enjoyable. As ever, my bad.
There are some artists that, for some indefinable reason, never seem to come across as well in the studio as they do live.
She’s definitely much more engaging live than on record, although the Silly Sisters duet albums she did long ago with Maddy Prior are good. As are the live bootlegs (found on’t internet) of her association with Oysterband.
Yes, as despite the dour, forbidding image that has built up around her, she has quite a feisty wit and does good between song. Mind you, I bet she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Someone at the back stood up to take some photos on Thursday night…. they will likely think twice before repeating the error. Though the treatment was kindly and amusing (‘Third light’) it was also firm, and got a good response from the audience at large.