Call Lane in Leeds may be thousands of miles and a cultural light year away from MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, but it does feel particularly apposite that Annie Dressner is playing here this evening. The Gaslight Café in Manhattan was where a fledgling peak-capped folk singer by the name of Robert Zimmerman had begun to sprout his wings and fly and now more than fifty years on in a venue bearing the same name the career of this particular young native New Yorker is just starting to take off. One album down, Strangers Who Knew Each Other’s Names was initially released the year before last, and with a new Extended Play East Twenties waiting patiently in the wings (it is due to be released on 8th April), there is suddenly a strong sense that something may be just about to happen for Annie Dressner, something that this evening’s performance does absolutely nothing to dispel.
Half a dozen tunes doth not a full set make but there is more than enough here to make you sit up and take note. A slightly hesitant September gives way to a far more assured Brooklyn. Accompanied only by her own guitar and the delicate furnishings of Paul Goodwin’s keys, these two songs from her debut album are both shorn of the studio’s richer instrumentation, allowing them to properly breathe and take you right across that East River and deep into Dressner’s memories. A brace of songs from the forthcoming EP then follow. I Can’t Forget, sung slightly behind the song’s beat in a voice that shifts along a continuum between Rosie Thomas and Nanci Griffith, is deeply moving; it captures Dressner’s pain as she stares out into the middle distance of the Gaslight Club, oblivious to the incessant chatter from the adjoining bar as she relives that acute sense of loss. And whilst Heartbreaker’s title may indicate yet further sadness on her part, both of these songs do ultimately reflect her inner strength and a firm belief in the power of love. Dressner closes with the opening song from her album, Fly. “I’m gonna grow some wings and fly”, she sings. On this evidence she may well be just about to do so.
