June Tabor, at Accrington Town Hall

FOLK purists may have been shocked that the woman they had once described as a "diva" and "national treasure" could dare to go off and sing jazz and contemporary rock too.

Nevertheless, Tabor did - and how well they were received.

For the folkist, the unaccompanied Bonny Boy was passionate, emotional and chilling. Thal Monk's When Midnight Comes Around was sexy and pure after Midnight Jazz - wonderfully enriched too by Huw Warren's keyboard playing.

Richard Thompson's Waltzing For Dreamers, with the haunting violin of Mark Emerson, was stunning. Elvis Costello wrote All This Useless Beauty especially for June Tabor. Put alongside Meditation, the Latin American jazz classic, some idea of the vocal range of this artist begins to emerge. Maggie Holland's A Place Called England - an impassioned plea to protect our land from an ecological backlash - was paradoxically the highlight of the show, well received too, having been voted folk song of the year.

Tabor is a wonderful interpreter of traditional and popular song and on this showing she will go on to "legendary" status.

JOHN VAUGHAN

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