This evening saw the return of the award-winning singer-songwriter Lauren Housley to Lincolnshire’s premier Americana venue, the Town Hall, Kirton in Lindsey. Of course, Housley is no stranger to these hallowed boards, having last played here back in November 2023 with her band, the Northern Cowboys. Which, at the time, had evolved into a six-piece with a brass section that included both trumpet and saxophone. That period proved extremely rewarding for Housley, earning two nominations at the 2024 UK Americana Music Awards, winning Song of the Year for High Time, and being voted Live Act of the Year. In addition, Housley and her band were invited to play the prestigious music showcase and film festival SXSW in Austin in March of that year. Since then, things have been a little quieter, on the music front at least, less so at home, where, with her husband and musical partner, guitarist and all-round multi-instrumentalist Thomas Gibbs, their focus has very much been on bringing up their two children. However, tonight’s performance sees them return to the stage for what is a small handful of gigs as a duo.
With no support this evening, the couple took to the stage as the clock struck 8.00 pm for the first of two sets, opening with The Waiting Game, a track that originally appeared on Housley’s second album, The Beauty of Life, which came out in 2017. Housley, proudly attired in a dress she picked up at a charity shop, appeared relaxed and among friends while Dibbs began standing alongside her with just his acoustic guitar for accompaniment. However, by the second track, Nice To See You, Dibbs had relocated himself behind the piano, which also gave him access to operating the drum machine that supplied the percussive pulse for many of the evening’s set list. Another older number, Sweet Surrender, showed that despite her absence from the stage for the last couple of years, Hounsley’s voice was in fine form, with its rich, soulful resonance a feature of so much of her three albums to date.
Charity shop talk was high on the agenda this evening, and not just dresses, as Hounsley told how she came home one day with a guitar she had picked up for just £10.00. Needless to say, Dibbs was less than impressed at the time; however, a change of strings, a pick-up, and plenty of TLC and hey presto, here was the guitar tonight taking the spotlight for Why Are We Making It So Hard, the first song of the evening to feature from Hounsley’s most recent album Girl From The North that came out back in 2021. To be honest, the guitar sounded pretty good and featured throughout the two sets; though, to be fair, Dibbs could probably take a rusty old tennis racket and get a pretty good tune from it; such is his musicianship.
From there, the duo offered up two cover versions, firstly with the old Goffin/King classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, that The Shirelles took to the top of the charts back in 1960 and would, of course, go on to feature on Carol King’s classic album Tapestry. Again, it is a song that suits Housley’s soulful vocal delivery and proved popular with the evening’s congregation, though possibly of greater interest was the duo’s performance of Roly Joe Salley’s classic Killing the Blues. This song had, in more recent times, been made popular by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their duet album Raising Sand, and here the couple were equally convincing with their rendition, Dibbs in particular showing off his vocal prowess.
There was still time for two more songs before the interval, both originally featured on the 2017 album release: first with the emotive So Hard To Love You, before the crowd-pleasing All You Need Is A Friend rounded out the first set.
After the interval of approximately twenty minutes, the duo returned to the stage, opening with Bless His Soul, the first song from the most recent album, before Housely informed the audience that they had two brand-new songs to introduce this evening. In fact, recent months have seen the couple working on a whole host of new material, and a new album is imminent, but it has yet to receive an official release date. Both songs, even with the relative sparseness of the arrangement here tonight, displayed all the soulfulness one associates with Housley, with a real flavour of Northern Soul, especially on the first of the two songs, Catch 22, and certainly whetted the appetite for the new album.
A delightful guitar intro from Dibbs led to the beautiful Sing To Me, with Housley’s evocative vocals taking on an almost ethereal quality before the duo reunited stage centre for a rousing cover of Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe, on which Dibbs used his somewhat more expensive Les Paul Junior. The award-winning High Time followed, and despite this much more stripped-back arrangement, the song lost none of its power, with its infectious chorus sending a warm glow all around the town hall. Dibbs then returned to the piano for one of Housley’s earliest songs, Show Them What Love Is, before a somewhat impromptu verse and chorus of John Denver’s Leaving On A Jet Plane, a song the couple sing to get their kids off to sleep, led to the final song of the second set, Built to Last, complete with a refrain of the Four Tops’ Call on Me for good measure.
Needless to say, an encore was vociferously demanded by the evening’s audience, who were suitably rewarded; firstly with another Carol King song, this time with You’ve Got A Friend, the song that James Taylor took to the top of the charts, which here saw Dibbs, still seated behind the piano, take the lead vocals, before Housley led the audience in a rousing rendition of the Bee Gees classic To Love Somebody, rounding off what had proved to be a triumphant return to the stage for Housley. Now all we need is that new album.
