It’s a busy spell of live music coming up at Kinross, with guitar maestro Albert Lee the biggest draw looming on the horizon.
Due to start a four-gig run at the Green Hotel on Thursday, the virtuoso six-stringer can draw on massive experience garnered from a music career that dates all the way back to 1959.
Star-studded career
An ever-popular booking, Herefordshire-born Lee, 78, has played with the likes of Chris Farlowe, Emmylou Harris, The Everly Brothers, The Crickets and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings.
Known for his lightning-speed fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique, he’ll be at Kinross for three nights before rounding off on Sunday week with an afternoon set.
Fans can expect the usual diverse selection of offerings – with the Grammy-winner’s signature tune Country Boy certain to feature.
Before then, it’s soft rock homage A Foreigners Journey tonight which, of course, means a chance to hear renditions of the best of veteran American outfits Foreigner and Journey – famed respectively for the monster hits I Want To Know What Love Is and Don’t Stop Believin’.
More guitar from John Verity
Another noted guitarist is at the Kinross venue tomorrow, namely ex-Argent frontman John Verity, who’s playing a rearranged gig after his previously scheduled show was put off back in April.
Now aged 73, the veteran’s been a solo operator in rock’s upper echelons since shortly after replacing Russ Ballard for a brief stint with the high-flying glam progsters in the mid-’70s.
Influenced by such blues giants as BB King and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Bradford-born Verity’s played with the likes of Ringo Starr, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Colin Blunstone.
His most recent R’n’B-fuelled album was 2020’s Passion, with his live band including drummer Paul Burgess, formerly of 10cc, Jethro Tull, Camel, Icicle Works and The Invisible Girls.
Neo-prog combo
Monday sees neo-prog combo Arena at the Kinross venue on their much-postponed 25th anniversary tour.
The Surrey outfit’s long-awaited 10th studio LP Theory Of Molecular Inheritance dropped last week and they can boast ex-Pendragon and Shadowland keys man Clive Nolan and early Marillion drummer Mick Pointer – both original members – in their line-up.
North of Kinross, veteran hit-makers 10cc are at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday. Still led by co-founder Graham Gouldman, the Greater Manchester art-rockers formed in 1972 and famously scored a hat-trick of UK No1 singles with their classics Rubber Bullets, I’m Not In Love and Dreadlock Holiday.
More recently, they impressed with a show-stealing set at the Doune The Rabbit Hole festival in July.
Wistful Blue Velvet
Elsewhere, Glasgow folk-popsters Tide Lines and wistful London-based duo Blue Violet hit the Students Association Club 601 in St Andrews tomorrow night.
The latter of those bands have been working on a successor to this year’s debut album Late Night Calls, with new four-track EP Love, Hate And Forgiveness recently completed.
Sam and Sarah Gotley’s new material is earning comparisons to the brittle acoustica of Beth Orton, with a melancholic vibe akin to that of US dream popsters Mazzy Star.
Meanwhile, the Woodside Hotel in Aberdour re-enters the gig fray on Thursday, when Alabama-born country folkster Hannah Aldridge is set to drop by.
She’s followed next Friday by legendary Glad To Be Gay and 2-4-6-8 Motorway troubadour Tom Robinson, who’s playing the only Scottish show of a 14-date up-close-and-personal UK tour at the High Street venue.
Still in Fife, Kirkcaldy songsmiths Rebecca Eaves, Rowan Wallace, Caz Paul and The Snickett are playing acoustic sets at the town’s Kings Live Lounge on Sunday from 5pm.
Lastly, fans of Fish and his erstwhile friends will be heading to Dundee’s Beat Generator tomorrow to catch tribute rockers StillMarillion, with the North Lindsay Street venue set to welcome Celtic fusion legends Peatbog Faeries on Thursday.
