floral pavilion - new brighton
chrishigh.com - march 2009
With a voice as rich as melted Belgian chocolate, veteran songstress Elkie Brooks managed to wow the packed and beautifully refurbished Floral Pavilion in New Brighton with a performance that rolled back the years.
Dressed at first in a figure hugging pink chiffon frock, Elkie took to the stage with a wave and a smile, before launching into a deeply mellow first half that recounted hits such as Sunshine After the Rain, Lilac Wine and the Chris Rhea number Fool If You Thin It’s Over. Above all these, however, it was possibly a number penned by her band’s keyboard player, Lee Noble, which stole show. Tell Me Why is an intense and moving song which – like all of the others performed tonight – was performed without fault.
Aided by a tight, note-perfect band and especially by the superb saxophone of Steve Jones, the second half was much rockier and livelier, to which the audience duly responded in kind. If You Don’t Make It The First Time, Roll Baby Roll and an incredibly lively, high-tempo version of the masterpiece Pearl’s A Singer, quite literally had them dancing in the aisles.
Unfortunately, we were informed that Pearl is actually 32 this week which only serves to make the limbs ache just a little more than they had without being informed of that statistic.
With an encore that included an emotional and beautiful Powerless and deeply enigmatic We’ve Got Tonight, Elkie Brooks was saying her goodbyes to New Brighton’s audience who were doubtlessly counting the days until her return.
A truly magical evening of music and song.
- Chris High
rhs rosemoor - great torrington
north devon journal - june 2009
Elkie rocks – end of. How so much vocal power can be unleashed from such a slight frame is an enigma, but, from the moment she takes the microphone, energy arcs across the stage like the national grid.
And here's another thing: how can this legend, with a lung capacity that could eclipse an opera singer, be 64? She looks good, sounds brilliant, and struts her stuff with a stance that is awesome and beguiling.
A set as slick as hers renders age irrelevant, but in introducing 'Pearl's A Singer' she reminded us she had been singing it for 32 years.
Then there was her mellow take on the first million-selling record 'Till The End of Time', recorded by Perry Como "in 1945, the year I was born."
Years may have flown by but the voice is just as potent and the band is just as hot. Elkie's songs embrace triumph over adversity, the emotions delivered in a bluesy voice that seems to understand it all.
There was applause for classics Fool If You Think It's Over, Don't Cry Out Loud, and the wonderfully uplifting Lilac Wine.
Then there were the surprises, band member Lee Noble's composition Why with the lyrics laced around the liquid notes of sax player Steve Jones.
The first half closed with Muddy Waters' He Moves Me – a blues number with a nice chunky tempo that exploded into flying lead guitar from Melvin Duffy, with Jones squeezing exquisite blues notes from the sax.
Tore Down blazed away – with Elkie punching the air to the beat like a petite pugilist. The encore delivered Powerless featuring Elkie and keyboard, with us hanging on her every word, and ended appropriately with the triumphant We've Got Tonight.
We certainly did – and the standing ovation showed it was a night to remember.
- Unknown
swan theatre - worcester
worcester news - august 2009
Back in those far-off days of Vinegar Joe, she was the queen of sass. An astonishing near half-century later, the unassuming northern lass with a penchant for the Deep South has now become the empress of class.
Sass, class. The two don’t necessarily go together but Britain’s rhythm and blues royalty effortlessly combines the two qualities to devastating effect. One moment, she’s taken us back to Muddy Waters’ home town in Mississippi, the next she’s behaving like an ordinary mill girl, wooing and flattering the audience with that legendary and infectious unmistakable charm. A sort of Jimmy Reed meets Gracie Fields, if you like. I mean, her trademark thumbs-up sign after nearly every number is almost Second World War and ‘Britain can take it.’ And talking of Jimmy Reed, you wouldn’t think that it was possible to breathe new life into his classic Baby What You Want Me To Do, but sure enough, she manages it.
The major factor that makes this all possible is a rock-steady backing band, spearheaded by the sterling work of keyboard ace Andrew Murray and saxophonist Steve Jones. These guys have perfected all the soul licks – their entire persona oozes Stax Studios and if you shut your eyes, it seems as if the Memphis Horns have just dropped by.
The sensuous Love Potion Number Nine seems a million miles from the Searchers’ jittery version from all those years ago, but these musical aperitifs merely get us in the mood for the hits – Pearl’s A Singer and Lilac Wine – which inevitably arrive spot on cue.
Looking around the auditorium and studying the sea of faces, it’s evident that many of us will be following Elkie Brooks into our dotage. In fact, old rockers never die… they just keep going to concerts as fantastic as this phenomenal woman’s Worcester Festival opener.
- John Phillpott
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