Alan Clayson

Alan Clayson, chanteur and raconteur, explores the most mature and cultivated form of popular song - in which there is as much emphasis on words and their literary resonance as melody and chord structure - throughout a thoroughly diverting soirée centred on passion, humour, deep emotion and sometimes casually shocking frankness, embracing love, liberty, tenderness, parting, death, abandonment, stupidity and further qualities of the human condition. CLAYSON SINGS CHANSON has been on the road since 2011, initially to tie-in with the publication of Alan Clayson’s Jacques Brel biography, La Vie Bohème - though the presentation’s origins lie too in 1999's acclaimed Ne Me Quitte Pas: A Celebration Of Jacques Brel, an all-star album on which Alan's contributions were highlights. With accompaniment and supporting programme from songwriter and vocalist Andy Lavery, the show is prefaced by an explanatory talk that is as entertaining as it is educational. As well as works, famous and obscure, by chansonniers, Gallic and British, Clayson ventures into curious but connected realms in a show which will appeal to both chanson devotees, those interested generally in Gallic culture - and anyone who wants to be merely entertained by music that has burned its brand on English-speaking wordsmiths as disparate as Anthony Newley, Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols - yes, really! - and the foremost mouthpiece of Brel’s output, Scott Walker. Prior to his renown as a music historian, Alan Clayson was popular in the late 1970s as leader of the legendary Clayson and the Argonauts and has since become ‘one of the more extraordinary figures to emerge from rock 'n' roll.’ (The Independent). Recent media coverage has been fulsome with phrases like ‘mesmerising’, ‘a man possessed’, ‘a wonderful evening by a master raconteur at the top of his game’. Here is further comment:- ‘His delivery and performance style has led to a deserved cult status’ (Time Out) ‘Definitely more than a performance - an experience!’ (New York Village Voice) ‘Hugely entertaining. Jacques would have approved’ (Rock ‘N’ Reel) ‘Everything here is equal to the doomed romanticism that was Brel’s trademark’ (Record Collector) ‘A complex emotional landscape of understated dynamics and dark aesthetics’ (Folk on Tap) ‘Simply incredible’ (Newbury Weekly News) See www.alanclayson.com for further information.