I have often played Kimmie Rhodes on my Saturday morning programme, but I have never seen her performing live and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. She opened with “Everywhere I Go” which I thought was a good choice – one of her own songs, medium tempo and of course, here she was, another place, another show. Kimmie was accompanied by her son Gabriel on guitar and piano. He also sang backing harmonies with her and their voices blended really well. Severaltimes in the evening, he laid his guitar flat on his knee and played dobro style and he did this to great effect in “God’s Acre”. This added greatly to the variety as singers tend to travel lighter band-wise these days.
Some of her intros were, by her own admition, a bit long, although they were generally quite interesting and amusing. When her daughter, Jolie Goodnight came on stage, the three part harmonies raised the game. The first one they all sang was Bob Dylan’s “Wallflower”, then a few duets from the ladies, The first, “Love Happens” co-written with Emmy Lou Harris was lovely, but my favourite song of the night was their interpretation of the Ray Charles song, “You Dont Know Me”, which I thought was outstanding.

They came back on stage after a standing ovation and sand two covers. Donovan’s “Catch The Wind” and a wonderfully laid back arrangement of Buddy Holly’s “Raining In My Heart”. Americans always have that really laid back style of performing, which makes everything look so easy and of course they left the stage to another standing ovation.