Adam Beattie announces live album

Adam Beattie

Acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter Adam Beattie, known for his ‘uplifting reveries of love’ (MOJO Magazine) releases his stunning brand new live album, Live At The Old Church. Recorded in one of the oldest and most sonically beautiful churches in the UK, Stoke Newington Old Church, the album features eleven of Adam’s self-penned songs.

Live At The Old Church features a supergroup of some of the finest musicians on the current UK folk scene including;

Mikey Kenney on violin, fresh off a touring season with Alabaster DePlume and Vinicio Capossela.

Zac Gvi on accordion, clarinet, sax – composer of a recent season of Twelfth Night at The Globe,

Fiona Bevan on duet vocals and double bass – multi-platinum songwriter who has written songs for the likes of Billie Martin and Aurora.

Chris Jones on drums and percussion – who has played for Kathryn Williams and Natalie Imbruglia.

There is real magic in the improvisation between all these incredible musicians.

Anyone who has seen Beattie live will understand that he is a ‘Master of powerful narratives’ (★★★★★ RnR Magazine). The album sees Adam display his versatility with flare. From his empathetic imagining of a refugee’s plight, ‘Stripped To The Bone’, to the romantic duet ‘All The Gods’ co-written with Fiona Bevan, via a very playful performance of ‘The Boy Done Good’, where Adam wanders off stage and interacts amongst his audience. We can hear why Adam is renowned for his stage craft and charming inter-song stories.

Throughout the concert we can hear Adam summon the audience into song, especially in ‘The Man Who Loves Too Much’ and ‘A Song Of One Hundred Years’, and voices fill a space where people have sung together since 1314! This gives this album a magical atmospheric quality.

Live At The Old Church includes songs from across five studio albums plus two brand new songs which serve as a preview of a new album in the making. Self-penned folk ballads ‘Home Fires Burning’ and ‘The Girl from The Seaside Town’ are premiered here. Showing us that Adam’s material is strongly connected to his traditional music background, and these songs are ideal fiddle tunes, Adam’s first instrument.

Adam’s most recent studio album Somewhere Round The Bend received much critical acclaim; As a writer of original contemporary Scottish folk songs while also drawing rich influences from other roots genres, Adam uses beautiful, intricate, finger-picked guitar and a distinctive voice steeped in smoke and honey to create ‘stirring folk balladry’ (The Line of Best Fit), with Loud And Quiet Magazine writing ‘the album is mesmeric”. Adam has been described as ‘incredibly beautiful’ by Mary Anne Hobbs BBC 6 Music, and “fantastic” by Bob Harris, and was also heavily championed by Roddy Hart, who featured the album as his ‘Record Of Note’ on BBC Radio Scotland.

An early break found him supporting folk guitar legend Bert Jansch at the O2ABC in Glasgow and since then Beattie has toured the UK and Europe including playing Cambridge Folk Festival, Purbeck Valley Folk Festival, Broadstairs Folk Festival, Larmer Tree Festival, and with Band Of Burns he has played The Barrowlands and The Old Fruitmarket for Celtic Connections and the main stage of Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

His debut studio album with trad folk 12-piece supergroup Band Of Burns earned top-10 Mojo Folk Album Of The Year and 5 stars from BBC Music Magazine, and his collaboration with alt-folk band PicaPica was signed to iconic Rough Trade Records.

Live At The Old Church is an ideal accompaniment to Adam’s studio albums, and fans are sure to enjoy these alternative arrangements born out of a life dedicated to live performance and musical collaboration.

Artist’s website: www.adambeattie.com

‘All The Gods’ – live: