When I was thinking about buying an Epiphone Casino guitar I listened to a lot of musicians who play one. The Beatles, obviously. Thom Yorke in the brilliant garden recording of The Numbers. And Salomé Leclerc who is relatively unknown even in her home province of Québec. She deserves more recognition. Her songs are simple but well-crafted and true, she has a delicate voice, and she plays her guitars with feeling and no little skill.
So when she gave a concert in Knowlton in late October, a short drive from our chalet, we had to be there.
The crowd at the concert was small but enthusiastic. She was playing a bigger concert in Montreal a few days later so it felt like she was using this gig as a warm-up, but her performance was excellent. Accompanied by just a drummer, José Major, her songs were more alive and powerful than in her recordings, and she introduced them with engaging anecdotes. She's definitely worth seeing live again - and she should seriously consider a live recording.
She toured the exact same concert throughout Québec and France over the past year so this extract from Lyon is a nice reminder of the gig in Knowlton. She's playing her Casino, her one has a Bigsby tremolo which mine doesn't but otherwise they're identical. But I can't quite get the same sound out of mine!
