“This one's for my Dad,” says TOM HINGLEY as he tunes up before his first number. “He's 89 and he's not been well of late. The first time he saw me play live was when the Inspirals headlined Reading in 1990. Afterwards, he gave me the best review I've ever had. He said the last time he'd seen a crowd react like that was when he'd seen Mussolini speak in Austria a few days before the War broke out.”
Sadly, the clutch of hardy souls who've turned out on this horrendously wet Tuesday night hardly constitute the mob old Musso whipped up in those dark days, but it certainly helps to have an acerbic, Hugh Cornwell-style line of patter to survive in the intimate surroundings of the mid-week folk club slot. There again, Tom's a pro. He's seen it all with both the Inspiral Carpets and The Lovers, and while he may simply appear to be a portly bloke with an acoustic guitar rather than one of Madchester's prime movers these days, he's still got plenty to say.
Thus, what could easily be a sparsely-attended failure becomes a compelling two-hour master class. In my ignorance, I didn't even realise Tom Hingley played guitar, never mind had a direct line to the Mississippi delta as the colourfully earthy selections from his new album 'Thames Valley Delta Blues' make abundantly clear. It gets even better when he ditches the guitar and plugs in a scabrously percussive banjo for songs like the off-kilter brilliance of 'Dog Suit' and an apparently mellifluous love song which suddenly bursts into a section about “maggots in the mortuary” wherein it speeds up and Tom's fingers fly like Ivor Biggun guesting with Eddie & The Hot Rods. Surreal, but magnificent.
Sensibly, he also fully realises the potential of having a hit-stuffed back catalogue to draw upon and takes pride in treating to us to a quite lovely 'Saturn V' and revelling in the punky aggression of a stripped-down 'Dragging Me Down' early on. Inevitably, an affecting version of 'This is How It Feels' draws the evening's biggest cheer, but it's the epic, Southern delta via Led Zep's 'Hats off to (Roy) Harper' re-invention of 'I Want You' that really takes this writer's breath away.
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Of course, one of Tom's major selling points is that his voice is light years ahead of many of his contemporaries. Frankly, however iconic they may be, it would be laughable to imagine either Ian Brown or Shaun Ryder pulling off this kind of singer/ songwriter presentation and expecting to be taken seriously. Hingley, though, has a superb range and the way he tips his head back and howls during 'I Want You' and an a capella cover of the blues standard 'Mercedes Benz' demonstrate just how under-rated a performer he is.
He concludes with a loaded tune from his 1999 solo debut, 'Keep Britain Untidy'. Hilarious and malicious in roughly equal measures, 'Whole' is Tom's Courtney Love commentary and it opens with the immortal line “she wore make-up like a zebra crossing.” He introduces it with a dark comment about her stealing his cigarette lighter, but one can only begin to imagine what vitriol he might have unleashed should she have half-inched 20 B&H off him as well.
It puts an amusing full stop on a generous, value for money evening made all the more remarkable when W&H later discover from the man himself that he's driven all the way from Belfast to make the show tonight. It's not the kind of altruism you normally associate with this game, but even in the scummiest of business there are the noble exceptions. Tom Hingley is one of these and he still deserves your ears.
(www.myspace.com/tomhingley)
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