Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

No matter how many times you watch John Chatterton perform in or around Liverpool you constantly feel bowled over by the genuine love that works its way between performer and audience in a constant yoyo effect that never seems capable of stopping.

The set is one that has an un-dilutable power attached to it, a facility to charm despite what many people might think about certain songs, their expressions and thoughts are soon changed as Mr. Chatterton’s guitar takes the crowd past their pre-conceptions and delights and beguiles in broad equal measure.

Perhaps the greatest compliment a member of the audience can say to a musician whose love of the Blues shines through like a welcome beacon past layered and chilling fog is that nobody can play a particular song in such a way apart from them. This should be said with beaming sincerity when suggested to him that his guitar led version of The Beatles track Come Together, is aside from the very obvious homage to the George Harrison, wasted in the hands of anybody but John Chatterton. If in the hands of the maker it is capable of placing a music lover to stand still, reflect and fall in love, then in John Chatterton’s beautiful playing ability it is enough to make a stone reach inside its pockets, find a handkerchief and wipe away several tears of joy.

The musician always has a habit of making anything seem so plausible, so easy and calm, no matter how un-tranquil they feel. Yet to watch an audience inside St. Luke’s appreciate an acoustic set which included the English traditional song A Week Before Easter, the utterly superb Marvin Gaye song I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water.

It says a lot about the measure of the man that long after his early afternoon set was finished, John Chatterton was still taking an active interest in the bands that took the stage inside St. Luke’s, even with a gig to perform in Salford in the evening, to take in this pride of Liverpool music seemed like wonderful exalted drug in which to praise, he was not alone in this but it was a joy to see.

If music is a healer, the John Chatterton should be looking at the possibility of adding Doctor infront of his name. A superb set by a magician of the guitar.

Ian D. Hall

John Chatterton performing at St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool. August 2014.