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William Elliot Whitmore
On Friday 11 September, South Street Arts Centre in Reading welcomes William Elliot Whitmore. Cutting a swathe through the modern musical landscape, Whitmore's music, while rooted firmly in Americana, is raw and seemingly untouched by pop culture, the like of which has drawn young dissidents to folk music since before Dylan's time.
Whitmore's gruff Americana is infused with the preacher blues of Reverend Gary Davis or the romantic populism of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, highlighted on his new album Animals in the Dark
The album, Whitmore showcases his classic song-writing and mastery of the acoustic guitar and banjo, but adds elements such as strings, an organ and a pedal steel, putting the songs into full arrangements and a band context for the first time. The results are a more expansive, cultivated sound, without losing any of the palpable soul that has garnered the 30 year old such critical acclaim.
The rare virtue of his songs is that they could have just as easily been sung in the desperation of a Hooverville during the Depression or in an uplifting choir of a 19th century rural congregation or marching on Washington in the 1960s. It is Whitmore's ability to balance contrasts - suffering and humor, truth and fancy, the literary and the earthy - that makes his releases so human.
Support from Norway's acclaimed The Tallest Man on Earth.
The Details
William Elliot Whitmore, supported by The Tallest Man on Earth
Friday 11 September, 8.00pm
South Street, Reading
Box Office 0118 960 6060
Online www.readingarts.com
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