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PP Arnold + Mavis Staples
Cornbury Festival, Great Tew
SOMETIMES the old ones are the best. On a second day of the Cornbury festival dominated by 20-something female singer-songwriters of a tepid, insipid ilk, it was left to two women in their seventies to inject some much-needed soul into proceedings.
PP Arnold and Mavis Staples have followed very different routes to musical stardom – the former by moving from the US into the excitement of swinging-sixties Britain, the latter mainly by staying close to her bluesy Chicago roots.
But both have retained a heartfelt and joyous faith in the redemptive quality of music that the likes of Pixie Lott, Megan McKenna and Amy MacDonald were unable to convey on other Cornbury stages. Both also possess an easy charisma and gospel-inspired feistiness that can hardly fail to move anyone watching.
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