Award winning record producer and musician Youth launched his first-ever solo studio album release, playing a live set featuring some of the songs in Earl’s Court where he grew up and first started his music career, with friend Portobello blues busker Marcia Mello on support with whom he recently released a compilation of earlier recordings.
The short set began on the album single, ‘Sha La Laa I Love You’; Youth playing acoustic guitar and singing alongside folk singer Merry McCloud on accordian. Although Youth is not used to being the focus of his collaborations, with an obviously weaker singing voice, the intimate set was from the heart. He moved onto the album’s eponymous title track, ‘Spinning Wheel’, which he recorded with The Verve’s Simon Tong, the original recorded version being a mix of ’70s guitar pop and folk-psychedelia.
Youth related tales of his old bedsit near the venue where he used to live when he was 17/18-years-old and which he shared with The Orb’s Alex Paterson, supplementing his income busking outside Earl’s Court tube station and attending multiple gigs a week in the height of 1977-78.
He then performed a few more tracks from his album with ‘Wooden Floor’ and ‘Charcoal Man’ – the latter related from his time spent living in Spain – and ended on a cover of Jonathan Richman’s ‘Roadrunner’.
08/03/22: Youth @ The Troubadour, London.
Photo © E. Gabriel Edvy/Blackswitch Labs.
© Ayisha Khan.