Ruarri Joseph @ The Shipping Forcast

Ruarri Joseph brought a little bit of laid back Cornwall to Liverpool on Saturday night. With just him and a friend on stage we were treated to an accoustic set that took us through his fairly large repetoire of songs and which saw him bare his soul on stage as his lyrics mainly come from personal life experience.

With the crowd shouting there admiration to Ruarri throughout the gig, you can see that he is building up a firm group of dedicated followers after taking a break in 2009 and this tour marks his return, complete with new album, Shoulder To The Wheel.

You can see the influences of Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and John Martyn in his music, yet still manages to bring his own originiality and modern twist to this genre of music, mainly through his personality which exudes on stage.

This gig was definitely one to bring out the "happy" in people with his bounce along, toe tapping music covering his three albums. For his finale, he actually asked the audience what they wanted to hear, (a first for me) which gave it more of a personal touch. After a few minutes and a lot of different songs being requested, it was mutally decided on a mellow little number followed by a rare performance of "Tales of Grime and Grit" a totally infectious track that gets not just the toes a tapping but the entire body.

All in all this was an excellent intimate gig and I for one am now hooked on his music

Review by Alison Goggin

http://www.ruarrijoseph.co.uk/

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Ruarri Joseph - UK Tour and Album

Ruarri Joseph has announced details of a new single and UK tour this spring. The nine-date tour will begin in Manchester’s Jabez Clegg on April 6 and conclude at Nottingham’s Glee Club on April 16.  Joseph is also confirmed to play Bristol’s Folk Festival in Colston Hall on April 29. The dates will coincide with the release of a new single, ‘Severed Dreams’, on April 18, which follows the Radio-2-playlisted ‘An Orchard For An Apple’. Both songs are taken from Joseph’s acclaimed new album, ‘Shoulder To The Wheel’ (ACP Recordings). Ruarri Joseph is a singer and songwriter born in Cornwall, but raised in New Zealand. His childhood was spent living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, swimming in rivers, docking lambs, shooting possums and going on road trips to lake Taupo for weeks on end.  Idyllic maybe,
but lacking in any musical outlet, Ruarri left school at 16 and began his search.  At 17 the search took Ruarri back to England (via a strange experience in Indonesia), where he met his wife-to-be at his first UK gig, and soon found himself a Teenage Dad, working as a nurse for the elderly and the mentally ill and playing music in any spare
time he could find. ‘Shoulder To The Wheel’ is Joseph’s third album, and was completed after an eventful few years. First, Joseph quit his Major Label recording contract after just one record.  His wife then helped himfound his own label, and still effectively acts as his A&R. Just ashis second album began to gather steam, their son, Alfie, had to
undergo emergency brain surgery, while his wife gave birth to theirthird-born, Harper, so Joseph bowed out of music momentarily.‘Shoulder To The Wheel’, then, was written following the eventual (andfull) recovery of Alfie. As such, there is a maturity on this record –and a sense of determination, hope and optimism as signalled by the
title - that reflects Ruarri’s twenty seven years.

You can catch Ruarri at the following venues and tickets are available from seetickets (link below)


Live Dates:
April 6 / Manchester / Jabez Clegg
April 8 / Leeds / Cockpit
April 9 / Liverpool / Shipping Forecast
www.seetickets.com

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