Josie Watts - Arts Centre, Havant. 28/10/05

Now this makes a refreshing change from my normal Friday night out down at Messclean with beer and rock music as a couple of friends and I take a trip up the road to Havant Arts Centre to watch Josie Watts. I was invited up to this by the guitarist and vocalist with DNA (see previous blog post) who was set to join Josie for the second half of her set and seeing as I love to experience new sounds and new venues I jumped at the chance to attend this night that was listed under Folk & Roots. The actual venue has a gallery where one can look at a fine selection of paintings and enjoy a pint or coffee before heading into the theatre area; tonight is not quite sold out but there is a decent turn out of people and I'm actually quite looking forward to finding out what Josie Watts sounds like.

Appearing from behind a black curtain with just an acoustic guitar for company she looks a little nervous but jumps straight into the first tune revealing a powerful voice and a beautiful guitar sound. It has to be said that the Arts Centre have an in-house sound engineer who does a fine job in this intimate venue and the sound is warm and crisp and lends itself well to the material being played. My friends mention Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan whilst listening and I quite agree in that Josie has a big voice and a nice direct style that has folk roots but has been transformed into a modern style singer songwriter approach that works very well with hints of Rickie Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell. As the set progresses, Josie relaxes and comes across as a charming confident character and all too quickly the first set ends, a sure sign that you are enjoying a gig as it felt like we had only been their five minutes.

The second set sees Josie joined by Joe on guitar, this leaves her free on the first couple of tunes to play sax inbetween singing. I've never been a lover of the sax to be honest and felt it added little to the tunes, although well played it just didn't seem to fit with the mood and I'm pleased to say that once she picked up the guitar again things started to flow; the music in this set is much more open and lively as opposed to the first sets inner searching and downbeat vibe. The guitar work is sublime as they play off and compliment each other creating some wonderful textures whilst Josie delivers her strong distinctive vocals. It's an impressive set and I have to say that I really enjoyed it; I would be happy to see Josie play again and would strongly recommend checking her out if you like that female singer songwriter type material as she is a fine performer and with a few decent support slots I could see her gaining a formidable reputation. I believe that she has an album out but I am not aware of a website or email address at present but when I find one I shall post it up just in case anyone is interested.