The singer/songwriter business is a risky one. Without a band name to hide behind, it's more like stand-up comedy - you live and die by your own name. It takes a special kind of talent to make it alone.
Take Mick Jagger for example - critically acclaimed for rolling out the Stones' hits last month, his 'Goddess In The Doorway' solo effort was subjected to a humiliating 'Save Our Mick' tabloid campaign. In one guise he's the living embodiment of rock'n'roll, in the other he's a wheezing embarrassment.
Zoe Johnson, voice of Bent's 'Programmed To Love' and sometime collaborator with Faithless, has no such problems. In fact, much like Beth Orton, free from an electronic backing her brand of 21st Century folk music is a revelation. Fronting a three-piece band that add nothing but subtlety, she plays a set that is beguiling and affecting in equal measure.
'Travelling Light' is an obvious highlight, while 'Swollen', from the Bent album, is reinvented as a gentle lullaby. It's absolutely gorgeous. The rest could be outtakes from Robin Hardy's soundtrack to 'The Wicker Man' - of which, frankly, there is no higher complement.
Jamie Scott, who follows Johnson, remains stubbornly earthbound by comparison. Patently influenced by Stevie Wonder, he lacks the essential ingredient that made his idol great: namely experimentation. The result of setting his voice against an acoustic guitar is so generic it would fail to stand out on 'Fame Academy'. Not even Daniel Beddingfield will be losing sleep. Maybe with a band he'd fly, but this is more Marti Pellow than soul heaven.
Fortunately, soul heaven is just round the corner in the shape of Amy Winehouse. The 19-year-old is a difficult one to pin down - championed by Giles Peterson but soon to be embraced by the mainstream; down with hip hop but coming on like a 30's jazz diva. The only undeniable fact is the outrageous brilliance of her voice. The room is floored the instant Winehouse opens her mouth.
Comparisons with Alicia Keyes await, but Winehouse has an overriding charisma. Think Norah Jones with a potty mouth and you'd be getting warmer. Yet her songs are real enough to believe in and her style is distinctly her own. The songs aren't bad either, with 'I Heard Love Is Blind', 'Best Friends' and 'Mr Magic' already sounding like future hits. It's rare to witness a talent so young and so assured but Amy Winehouse is clearly a star in the making. Houses have been put on less but dotmusic guarantees she'll be huge in a year.
So much so that Adam Masterton feels like the proverbial pin in the party balloon. Aiming for the wild mercurial sound of Dylan circa '66, he sounds as dated as the harmonica strapped round his neck. Every blow on that horn sounds like a death rattle. We're meant to equate this with 'classic rock' but the empty space where Amy Winehouse stood grows conspicuously larger as Masterton's clichéd set drags on.
