If you look Dory Previn up on YouTube you’ll see that her clips have been viewed on average about 20,000 times each. By comparison Kate Bush’s views on the video-sharing website number in the many millions. Both women were working in the 1970s, both were writing highly original and personal material with sometimes quirky lyrics. Bush now sits amongst the rock gods of course, but my suspicion is that Previn’s work will always continue to be on a very slow burn, there to be discovered and revered by those seeking poetry crafted into song, full of emotional honesty and given the oxygen of pain.
Accompanied exquisitely and sensitively by Naadia Sheriff on piano, Kate Dimbleby’s celebratory exploration of Previn’s experiences and songbook breathed life back into this deeply personal work that has always existed outside music’s mainstream. In a near full-house at the Tobacco Factory, Dimbleby, now a Bristol resident, had full control of a revealing night’s singing and storytelling. In the doing of it her own respect and admiration for her subject and her obvious enjoyment of bringing Previn’s writing to new and old fans was obvious, and she took everyone with her. “How many people in the audience know of Dory Previn?” she asked early on. Almost the entire audience put up their hands. “Well that’s something Bristol does better than New York!”
Dory Previn (born Dorothy Langdon) was to suffer from two breakdowns and diagnosed with schizophrenia. Her brittleness was hardly surprising given her upbringing with her war-damaged father (I ain’t his Child, With My Daddy In The Attic), her convent schooling where she was forced to use her right hand although naturally left-handed (Left Hand Lost), and her ruined marriage to the composer/conductor André Previn – Mia Farrow proving too great an attraction (Beware Of Young Girls). But Dory’s legacy of eight albums of astonishingly candid songs has provided a blueprint for other artists seeking to express the more visceral sides of life.
Directed by the award-winning Cal McCrystal (One Man, Two Guv’nors), Kate and Naadia have performed on Jools Holland, Woman’s Hour and Radio 3’s In Tune. Given the rapturous reception they received at the end of tonight’s show, there are still plenty of legs left in this gig. Dimbleby is a natural host as well as confident performer. Effortlessly turning from songs to narration to interaction with the audience, Kate made 300 people feel like a small gathering in her living room. Importantly she could switch from the more vaudevillian upbeat numbers, Yada Yada La Scala and Did Jesus Have A Baby Sister? to the darker visions in Mary C. Brown And The Hollywood Sign and Lemon Haired Ladies, to the quiet intimacies of The Perfect Man and Going Home with equal verve and feeling – a worthy ambassador for Previn’s genius. Highly recommended. ★★★★★ Simon Bishop 24th January 2015
