Later in the day I was able to catch Lucy Marshall, a Hull-based acoustic artist with three EPs and experience of touring across festivals such as Cambridge Rock and Blues, and Cornucopia, her website is very nice indeed I am totally jealous http://www.lucymarshallsings.com/.
She was playing in the 1st floor room of the The Leopard pub, Doncaster, a fairly dark, industrial venue space above the pub. It was a tight room and probably better in design towards rock rather than folk, but this did not matter so much for the artist. After all, Lucy did bring a variety of tracks though such as Beck’s “The Golden Age” and Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” which would be more at home here; she also furnished the audience’s attention with the traditional “Three Fishers”, and her own song “Fragile.” In respect to singing and acoustic guitar playing she all these genres in her acoustic style, which takes some effort. Her version of “Three Fishers” eschewed the dulcet, pronounced or mildly operatic sound of John Baez instead going for an equally emotive, more rugged sound that more than hearkened to her own family’s time at the coast. Lucy does appear to carry a large number of musical elements with her, the breadth of influences is a refreshing one, and an indicator of someone who loves music without being chained by recent fads.. Her whole performance was sustained with good singing and a sense of honesty and friendliness in her stage manner. She undoubtedly has a lot of singing talent and a potential hook for success, especially as she is early in her career it feels like her progression lies twofold.
Her performance itself was confident. She is but a few steps from treading in the shoes of other young singer-songwriters, I can see the similar attitude and niche of Lily Allen, Kate Nash and folk’s Lucy Ward (who she has supported on tour). On stage there were times where she was excessively modest, and maybe it was not intended, but there was a feeling of uncertainty in her discussions about her musical direction (she references about the old band at one point). We have all been there in different parts of our lives; it sounds cliche but she just needs more belief in herself because really sounds good. I think the key to this lies in a second point of development. Her music choice suggests a reverence for the past while reconciling her own music together in a show. If she has a tighter-knit themed ensemble of music, it will allow an audience to connect even more. Her rock catalogue fits the rock and blues scene, her own material is more aimed at her generation, and the folk tracks are a different audience again. Credit is due, the audience really liked her and that is the hard part, the rest can be arranged around as seen fit.
An interesting and unique mix of songs, I think she could capitalise on it through consideration of her character, manner and stage identity. She has a pretty powerful voice and you can see there is something there, something more. I hope to hear more of her in the future and see where this path takes her.
Check out her music from her website http://www.lucymarshallsings.com/music!
Check out the sample video below of “Fields of Gold”, she is there doing a great job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4wq0hu0ARs