Anyone who’s ever been in a guitar shop will know all about the limited thrill of impressive musicianship. You’re likely to find some roadie thrashing away while perched on an amp – or a nauseating prodigy fingering a three-quarter sized nylon strung instrument three times the value of your own.

After the initial ‘wow’ at finding virtuosity in mundane surroundings you’ll soon find your attention wandering – perhaps you’ll even question whether they’re in the shop to do anything other than show off.

Or is that just musician envy? Whatever, people who are passionate about music are under no obligation to love musicians, and it’s easy to suspect that the ones who practise most are missing the point, wasting their time training like an athlete when they could be conjuring up something altogether more valuable and proportionately less quantifiable.

Singer-songwriter-stomper-guitarist Paul Curreri proves this is a fallacy. For sure, his advanced folk/blues/country chops are as impressive as they come but the real thrill of hearing him play live isn’t in simple velocity – it’s in the energy with which he attacks the instrument. His playing proves that musical finesse doesn’t have to come at the expense raw physical excitement – he makes an spectacular sound with one 6-string acoustic, and between his right thumb and thumping foot there is enough rhythmic drive to leave many bands for dead.

Curreri’s playing has an elasticity that transfixes an audience, slowing the tempo and accelerating, developing catchy riffs into elaborate arpeggios. It frames and lifts his vocals, which although capable of cooing sweetness and blues roars, tend to remain warmly understated.

And playing live is his natural arena – Curreri may be a good (and occasionally excellent) lyricist, and his songs have good tunes in any setting. But his album recordings have not yet captured the impact of his live act. Or the spontaneity. He is a master of between-song patter, while his talking blues staple Long Gone John from Tennessee contains an apparently improvised fast talking hipster digression on John’s shoes: “…they’re from London, that’s five hours ahead – these shoes are from the future…”. Elsewhere he uses older songs Letting Us Be and On Hopeless Love (i think) the way a band like Led Zeppelin would use a song like Dazed and Confused. On a bad night (and I’ve never seen Curreri on bad night even when he was trying to quit smoking – which was also the subject of another rambling tall tale) these might be mere showcases. The rest of the time, they are extravagant, even grand explorations. Not only does the playing quicken your pulse, it pulls you into his world, and makes the songs (which transcribing here won’t do justice to) truly three dimensional.

His wife and co-star, Devon Sproule is an entirely different talent.

Working in what might sound like the same genre, she’s more than a competent guitarist, but an extraordinary singer. Her songs have more melodic hooks than her husband’s but her voice, while ideally suited to them, is hard to appreciate in print. What is distinctive, and what lifts her above equally able vocalists, is the delivery. From the rural intonation to the utterly natural way she rides a melody, she inhabits every word she chooses to sing. Sproule’s commitment and low-key sass also make her compelling to watch, wrinkling her nose during the more telling lines of her most intimate songs, and popping her shoulder and thrusting her head during up-tempo numbers. At the Roundhouse, she was backed by a sympathetic, almost transparent four-piece band including jobbing pedal steel ace BJ Cole. The ensemble would probably have diluted Curreri’s playing, but they made Sproule’s songs glow.

During the instrumental breaks she frequently continues to sing off-mic, as though these tunes just pour out of her constantly, and all she has to do is stand in front of a PA system at the right time. Sproule’s voice even has a melodic ring when she’s offhandedly dedicating songs to her friends. Or was I just hypnotised by this point?

She is never showy, but she shares her husband’s easy humour, both between songs and during. Many songs have a domestic setting and dwell on picturesque detail, but others inevitably encourage speculation about her relationship with Curreri. Don’t Hurry for Heaven contains this pay-off: “Well I’ve heard the curse of a guitar like the curse of a woman/ and you can tell a true player by his want to get better, they say/ So if you love me even half as much as you love your old Martin, well you should be practising on me just about every…”

… And then instead of the final word, she executes a cheeky blues guitar run, that says just as much and helps turn what could have been a rather acidic broadside into a well-meant joke.

After the triumphs of their solo sets, the third, featuring the pair dueting, felt more like an extended encore. The mood was consistently upbeat. Although Curreri made the best jokes, he made sure his wife was the real star as he backed off on the guitar, and used voice as a harmonic accompaniment to hers. By the penultimate song, the old, rolling-as-the-hills traditional Weeping Willow, their musicianship was meshing perfectly – but most importantly, the warmth they generated radiated from the stage and bounced right back to them from the audience. Virtuosity is one thing, but charm quite another – and to have your brain, ears and funny bone all tickled in the same show is a rare treat indeed.

Little Dave Clapping

LINKS

www.paulcurreri.com

www.devonsproule.com

www.myspace.com/paulcurreri

www.myspace.com/devonsproule

(Four albums’ worth of duets for free download) http://www.paulcurreri.com/music/valentine_main/index.htm