From LA to Lerwick
FRESH from playing before a televised audience of 12 million Americans last month, Roddy Hart and his band the Lonesome Fire play live at Mareel tonight – the group’s first show since their California trip.
The band, who featured in last year’s Proclaimers film Sunshine on Leith, were invited to Los Angeles by Scottish TV presenter Craig Ferguson in February.
After delivering a rollicking version of the song Bright Light Fever on the Late Late Show, the band were given the unusual accolade of a five-night residency on the show. Not a bad precursor to a Friday night in Lerwick.
Glasgwegian singer songwriter Hart’s name will ring familiar among islanders who saw him open for Kris Kristofferson at the Clickimin last month.
It was the legendary country singer who gave Hart his first big break almost a decade ago.
“I’m a very lucky man,” Hart admits. “Back in 2004 or 2005, Kris was in Glasgow making a movie called The Jacket and he decided he wanted to play a gig.
“He requested a support act, and between five to ten solo acts got put forward. Luckily he chose me, for whatever reason, and we did two shows at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.”
Kristofferson liked what he heard and the pair have since played over 40 shows together across the UK, including the Royal Albert Hall.
“It was sheer coincidence, sheer luck, so I’m forever grateful,” Hart says.
The man famous for hits including Me and Bobby McGee also persuaded Hart to choose the music industry over the legal trade (he has a first class honours degree in law).
He explains: “Kris Kristofferson looked me squarely in the eye and said ‘the world doesn’t need any more lawyers, but the world needs some more songwriters’. So that was it, it was decided.”
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Thirty three year old Hart, who also works as a national radio broadcaster, released three solo records before going on to work more regularly with five musicians who collectively became The Lonesome Fire.
The group have performed as the house band at star-studded Celtic Connections tribute shows to Bob Dylan and Gerry Rafferty.
Last year they released an eponymous 12-track album praised by Uncut magazine as “poetic and [with] verve… evoking the epic rock of Springsteen”.
So what can the audience for tonight’s show, presented by Ragged Wood Promotions in association with Shetland Arts, expect?
“It’s going to be very different actually,” Hart says, “because the Kris show was acoustic. It’s going to be a full band treatment, and we’re really looking forward to it.”
* Roddy Hart & the Lonesome Fire, supported by No Sweat, play live at Mareel tonight. Doors open at 7pm, and some tickets are still available from the Shetland Box Office priced £15.
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