Little Sparrow launched her second album Feather Moon with an intimate show at 53two, one of Manchester's best-kept secret creative spaces. Performing the album in full with a band and a surprise guest as well as a series of anecdotes about the songs, she delighted an attentive appreciative and enthusiastic crowd.
The night is opened by two very different solo artists. Sam Lyon kicks things off, warning us that she's got throat issues that might affect her singing. If it did, we didn't notice. Songs about pregnancy and motherhood are clearly emotional subjects for her and she succeeds in transmitting that to the audience. She tells us she's been making music for over a decade and her set takes tracks going back to EPs from 2018 and her 2023 album What It Is To Know Colour including its title track. She gets a warm response from the crowd. She's followed by Jake Mattison, a singer-songwriter with a distinctive vocal style that sounds nothing like his Mancunian roots. Having taken a decade or so without releases Katie tells us he's returned to the live scene and there's moments between songs where he laughs that his "shit banter" isn't his real persona, but when he starts to play, it's almost impossible not to be drawn to the intricate finger work he employs on his guitar and the unrelenting focus he has as if he's at home crafting the most important song of his life right there and then.
One of the difficulties of a grassroots musician these days is the cost of performing and when you have a band those costs are multiplied. Add in the real life requirement to work to have money to live and to follow your art, it's not surprising that artists like Katie Ware's (aka Little Sparrow) live appearances are rare and a full-band one an even more special event. Bringing together Sarah Dale on cello (and hilarious sound effects to Katie's stories), Mitch Oldham on percussion, Robin Dewhurst on keyboards and Jonny Lexus on guitar brings the songs from Feather Moon to life before our eyes. For an emotional Dry Your Eyes, where you could hear a pin drop in the venue in the silent moments, she's also accompanied by Dr Rakesh Joshi on harmonium and vocals - a magical other-worldly combination that cast the song in new light.
Feather Moon is performed in full and in order other than opener Corner Of The Room being moved to third in the set after lead single Follow Me and Memories Maid. Throughout the unstinting excellence of the musicians make each song a drama in its own right which allows for a stunning contrast between it and Katie's beautiful operatically trained vocals. The emotion floods out of the songs whether it's the cello acting as the lead instrument and setting the mood, sometimes clashing with the percussion and at other times combining to accentuate the impact. The keyboards and the acoustic guitars are more subtle but their part in building the whole effect are just as important. The chemistry and love between the five of them is so self-evident and it spreads to the audience who all feel like they're in on a wonderful secret.
The songs themselves are beautifully crafted. A twelve-year gestation period for Feather Moon since Little Sparrow's debut Wishing Tree has afforded her the time to get them just right. Some have been released in a form or other and others have been showcased live at her rare outings and developed into the beautifully crafted collection of songs that they are. Moondust and Tears, the latter written by her father and sung to her as a child Katie tells us, are rich, evocative and heartfelt. Follow Me, Corner Of The Room and Old News are faster, driven along the cello and sounding like songs that could make the crossover to radio and more commercial appeal whilst retaining their intrinsic warmth and intensity.
My Ghost Lives On and Alone are a little darker, Katie taking the time to tell the story behind each song, often with self-deprecating wit and audience responses, but they still possess the inherent beauty that the five of them create together. Not even the distraction of a dancing gentlemen who saw them at Green Man and turned up tonight to dance at the top of the stairs and shout out between songs could throw them of course, Katie smiling, interacting with him and making him feel like part of the show.
The crowd don't want to let them go as Alone finishes and they oblige with an encore of Wishing Tree's title track, a gloriously upbeat song that captures the essence that sits at the core of both of Little Sparrow's albums before they leave to a well-deserved standing ovation. It feels as we leave this wonderful little venue that we've witnessed something really magical, an artist who lives and exists in her own world that's a privilege to have found a way into.
Little Sparrow plays Davenham Players Theatre (June 20), Mold The Tin Shed (July 10), Leamington Spa The Temperance (September 27) and Coatbridge The Georgian Hotel (October 2).
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