“SMALL town, small table,” Eric Taylor quipped on Saturday in his lazy Texan drawl, finding a precarious space for his glass of Chilean Merlot, beside a guitar effects pedal that looked like it had seen more of life than most of us ever will.
It is the ability of the Old Brewery in Cromarty to attract world-class artists to a distant corner of the Highlands that makes the venue an exciting and vital part of the international touring scene.
Folk/blues singer-songwriter Taylor, whose songs have been recorded by household names such as Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett, has all the rock star credentials you could ask for. He peppers his lethargic, dreamy delivery with tales and confessions of a long-defeated addiction to heroin, shooting a bar's noisy popcorn machine, and a chance encounter with Johnny Cash at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Taylor's performance sneaks up on you, drifting from introductory banter to a curious story of a circus train crash, and then set opener Carnival Jim & Jean is in full flow, not dissimilar to Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms in both vocal tone and guitar work.
A lot about Taylor draws easy comparison to other artists. Most noticeably his ethereal style is frequently redolent of Jim Morrison, with the portent atmosphere of The Doors classics Riders On The Storm and The End being felt through much of Taylor's work.
Yet there is no sense that Taylor is an imitator. This is a man whose larger-than-life talent sets the agenda, rather than following it. With a simple heel tap for rhythm and a voice of velvet brushed backwards, he gracefully picks a gutsy soundtrack from his custom-made Ross-Kinscherff Dreadnought guitar and holds his audience entranced. Mention also must go to Taylor's road manager and warm-up act, Stewart Warburton, hailing from Lancashire but doing fine work with his self-penned roots Americana.
Highlights were Dolores, dealing humorously with the often overlooked issue of domestic violence towards men, and La Jilguera, touching more seriously on the phenomenon of hundreds of female murders around the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.