LONDON - ROYAL ALBERT HALL - 03.12.80
(The Times - December, 1980)
Of all the many distinguished female singers spawned by the folk circuit since the middle 1960s, Barbara Dickson is perhaps the easiest to like. In her case the clear sound and precise enunciation convey, not severity, but vivacity and this quality alone probably made the transition to mainstream pop comparatively painless for her.
Although she produced a confident, unaccompanied rendering of "MacCrimmon's Lament', last night's performance was really only about her prowess as a pop performer and despite a strangely reserved audience and a certain ponderousness of presentation (the latter probably due to nerves) she gave a creditable account of herself.
Naturally the favourites were delivered: 'The Long and Winding Road' reminded us of her debut in 'John, Paul, George, Ringo...and Bert', 'Answer Me' appeared in Junior Campbell's charming arrangement and the reception given to 'Another Suitcase in Another Hall' bore testimony to the audience's opinion of the work of Rice and Lloyd Webber.
The emphasis, however, was heavily on her recent collaboration with Alan Tarney, whose effective but one- dimensional style has given her hits with 'January February' and the lovely 'It's Really You'. She performed serveral of Tarney's songs, which was perhaps too many in view of their uniformity, and the asymmetrical bars placed in the bridge of her own 'In the Night' suggested that she has even picked up some of his habits.
She certainly has a singularly beautiful voice, with a firm rounded tone, absolutely secure pitch, an unforced vibrato and nicely formed vowels (rare in this idiom) and her quartet provided compact accompaniments. Mike Batt's theme song from the film 'Caravans' is exactly the kind of maudlin rubbish she should avoid, though, and the arrangement of Goffin and King's heavenly 'Will you Still Love Me Tomorrow'
was disappointingly lacklustre.
