The Lorraine Bowen Experience
Anke Landeau
and your host Des de Moor

Pirate Jenny dishes out kitsch and glitz tonight in equal measure with brilliantly inventive songwriting and superb musicianship. Suburban exoticist LORRAINE BOWEN, once described as "Joyce Grenfell meets Madonna" is no stranger to the Vortex stage though long overdue for a return visit. She's a songwriter of the most appealingly quirky kind, a multi-instrumentalist who mixes faux home organ rumba with jazz crumhorn solos, and a brilliantly humorous entertainer and singer of some virtuosity and distinction, handling semi-spoken comedy pop and statospheric Yma Sumac-style coloratura with equal ease.

Formerly a sideperson for Billy Bragg, she came to prominence in her own right during the kitsch and easy listening boom of the 1990s, but her talent easily transcends such easy categories, and at PJ's she mixes the high voltage humorous material for which she is best known with more thoughtful and provocative piano-based songs. She's played everywhere from the Comedy Festival in Vancouver to an IKEA store party in Lake Lugano, made numerous appearances on TV and has recently secured herself new record deals in Italy and Spain. She is also rumoured to bake up a good crumble.

German-born ANKE LANDEAU is another denizen of lounge clubs and cabaret dives with a strong talent beneath the glitz. She's principally known for her stunning and spiritually faithful tributes to the great Marlene Dietrich, but she's capabel of much more than gravel-voiced hommage to the sultry icon. At PJ's back in March 2001 Anke expanded well beyond Dietrich's early-established core of great Hollaender tunes into Piaf, Weill and beyond in excellent and idiomatic interpretations, and we're glad to have tracked her down for a return appearance.

Rounding things out as always is Pirate Jenny's host and resident performer DES DE MOOR combining moving and witty originals and classic European songs in original translations, with DAVID HARROD on piano.

www.lorrainebowen.co.uk

Back to the Pirate Jenny's page
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See also

Des de Moor's gigs page for a complete list of his forthcoming performances.