CityLife

Mary Hampton

Mary Hampton was performing at The Deaf Institute

SHE takes her guitar and rests it on her knees, no introductions or welcomes, and sings. It’s a traditional song that, she tells us when finished, originates from the West Country.

But that’s all – while her other folk contemporaries put their songs firmly in context, stating where they learnt it and from whom, Mary Hampton leaves the song to settle and the listener to decide, whether they were fortunate enough to catch the lyrics or not.

And the pattern continues, each song speaking for itself, the performer only the vessel for them to be heard.

Sashaying into sweetness

She neglects to even tell the small audience her name. But there’s no chance the listener would forget the name Mary Hampton once that distinctive, captivating and often eerily sinister voice is heard.

It dips and dives at the most unexpected of moments, cracking into breathlessness or sashaying into sweetness, her face often contorting with effort just to get it out there.

Admittedly, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But coupled with curious lyrics, whether her own antiquated words or someone else’s – she sets music to an Emily Dickinson poem at one point – the effect is both magnificent and deeply unsettling.