PAUL WALKER & KAREN PFEIFFER - Dragon’s Breath Acoustic Folk Club
A thirty strong audience made their way to the popular Dragon’s Breath Acoustic Folk Club in Treuddyn, Flintshire on this warm Tuesday evening full of expectation and good humour and were not disappointed by the very popular duo Paul Walker and Karen Pfeiffer. This was their first visit to the club but their growing reputation for fine harmonies, smooth guitar playing and delicate pipe work in addition to exceptional choices of material preceded them, and the audience were treated to ninety minutes of unmitigated pleasure.
From the very start Karen tempted us with an exquisite accapella rendition of Sir Samuel Fergusson’s, ‘The lark in the clear air,’ which led them smoothly into their self penned, ‘Where I lived’ from their new album Auf Wiedersehen, Me Duck. From there the night unfolded with a relaxed and thoroughly entertaining array of their own songs mixed with familiar and intriguingly unfamiliar numbers by host of different composers. From their new album we heard, the nostalgic ‘Our golden age,’ the humorous and all too familiar (to songwriters) ‘The rejected songwriters’ club,’ the poignant ‘What if my pockets were empty,’ which examined our attitudes towards the relationship between success and love. We joined in with lusty voices as this talented duo introduced us to their own ‘The ballad of the Queen of May,’ and showed us a pragmatic side with ‘Down to numbers,’ finishing the evening with the title song from the album, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Me Duck’ which transported us to their unique mixture of roots in Stoke on Trent and Stuttgart. Sprinkled amongst all these wonderful self written gems were, ‘ Goeth’s song, by Colum Sands and Johann Wolfgang von Goeth, a truly wonderful arrangement of ‘George Harrison’s ‘Here comes the sun,’ The peat bog soldiers (Die Moorsoldaten, Esser, Langhoff / Goguel), Joan Baez’ ‘Diamond and dust,’ and the Pat Daly / Jimmy Crowley song, The rose of Coburg Street. Evidence that Paul and Karen are becoming a tour de force in the folk world can be seen in the extensive gig dates as clubs and festivals are keen to book this duo to bless their venues. They arrived in North Wales at the end of their tour that took in England, Ireland and Scotland and with performances as far away as New Zealand, Australia, and Germany one can say that they have developed into a truly international act.
You can catch them on their website as they are coming up for their hundredth Afternoon Tea Special podcast which features them singing live and chatting about folk music and life
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