‘We freaking love this country’. The good news is that Sunny says she’s moving to England as she gushed about the kindness and courtesy of the people she’d met on her latest tour of UK venues. She think she’s sealed the deal by confirming it was logical as she already had a ‘Yarksheer” (Yorkshire) Terrier. The Texas born Nashville resident’s on her latest visit to these shores and it’s proved a blast playing small venues with Harley Husbands. Husbands played the melody and occasional bass lines on acoustic guitar as Sweeney played chords. In return the small, packed club were thrilled to have this country music troubadour grace us with her excellent repertoire. This included many laugh out loud moments as she filled in between the 17 songs. She touched on albums old and more recent; all guaranteed to deliver a favourite you’d know and love.

It was an awfully wet wintery night in Manchester but those who came out were happy to be there and were singing along word perfect on a number of her songs. Take a great set of country pop songs, a running commentary, tales from the road, fan worship and it was always going to be fun. I liked all the songs but Grow Old With Me was a 5 Star experience even though she said it was written to her dog! She played Still Here, one of the less obvious tracks off her 2022 Married Alone album as Bob Harris had recently played it on his radio show. From there we went back nearly 16 years to her debut album Heartbreaker’s Hall Of Fame for Please Be San Antone.

Loretta Lynn gave her some song writing advice and she told us about it in reverential tones,  ‘write what you know baby!’ It wasn’t what Sweeney expected but after reflection she did and this explains her several marital break up songs. This was the introduction to another song off Married Alone, Leaving Is My Middle Name! I hoped she’d play Lavender Blue and she delivered along with the other crowd sing-a-long Poets Prayer – a wonderful heartfelt song about the life of an artist on the road with their insecurities, deprivations and yet the irresistible draw of taking their artistry far and wide. 

During the song introductions Husbands sat quietly occasionally contributing to stories. The best was when Sweeney declared ‘she was here to tell you how to get free gas’. A hilarious story where they were two hours past the petrol station before they realised they’d driven off without paying. ‘You paid for the gas, right? Err… no I thought you did’. The story ended up with her calling the head office of the petrol station to try and pay. This probably explains why you can never get fuel in the USA unless you pay in advance or at least surrender your credit card.

All good things come to an end and soon she was signing off with From A Table Away and Can’t Let Go. She then disappeared to the ‘merch desk’ where fans were exhorted to buy four CD’s for the price of three as she was tired of lugging them around the country! Me? I pulled up my collar and disappeared into the Manchester rain having had a memorable evening and having ticked off another country favourite.

(Just a brief mention in despatches for Northern Ireland’s Gary Quinn and his earlier support spot. He’s an established, talented and very authentic country artist who’s making music that has a wide appeal. It was my first listen and I’ll be keeping an eye on how he’s doing.)