We play the hand we are dealt but for some there is always a way to seek a journey beyond the deck of possibilities, a chance not yet observed by many to keep performing at the table long after everyone else has cashed in their chips and hailed a taxi to their homes. For some the stimulation they continue to garner, to chase and embrace the fortune and the pot of creative bounty is enough to see the pair of deuces as a winning hand and the straight flush as a moment of beauty, of ignoring the glare and opening the mind to all the permutations possible.

To find yourself in the company of John Chatterton, regardless of the setting, is to find a place of serenity, a moment where The Space Between breathing and observation come alive and where you can see the room as a potential ground for pleasure received as well as musical gratification offered.

What could be sensed though as John Chatterton started the second half of the evening of music and poetry at The Casa on Liverpool’s Hope Street was the delight and dignity which highlighted the character of the musician fully. Across his own compositions in which added a dimension of extra gravitas to a poet’s words, or in his indomitable way in which he framed songs such as Walking Blues, Come Together or Sunshine of Your Love, John Chatterton flair was of the finest, and expected class.

It was in the music unheard before the evening which captivated the ear. In the homage to Fleetwood Mac’s weighty instrumental Albatross, Facial Expressions, Death By Bow, I Play Sax As They Jive, The Seagull and the Ironmen and Kerouac Dreams, the flavour of scenes that had not been spoken came alive, certainly entrancing the audience with his passion and guiding the words he had provided the music for with ease.

For some musicians, to be seen up close and personal can find the spell carefully weaved, come apart, the strands become frail, held only together with dust and hope. Not so for John Chatterton, and in the space that breathed for an hour, what opened up was like the hand holding a straight flush in a room full of four of a kind hands, magical, mesmerising, principled.

A great set of music which accompanied a poet’s words, unique perhaps, certainly superb; John Chatterton’s spirit is never at stake, always calm and collected, an easy hand in which he wins.

Ian D. Hall