Two remarkably different gigs - beautiful in their own way...

So Thursday night at the Brisbane Jazz Club we have the multitudes on stage, with George Jackson and Luke Moller duplicating every lick Jamie played on the album (on his banjo, mandolin and lap steel) while he lays out his dainty and dirty guitar figures. There will also be a whole lot of violins. Two tracks feature the guest player Jo Lack, so her parts will be covered by Luke but also by a terrible trio of old mates, John Rodgers, Eugenie Costello and all the way from sunny Melbourne, Marjorie Michael. And there's more!!! Cause Pearly Black's understudy will be the phenomenal Megan Sarmardin and helping out on bass and harmony singing we have Helen Russell as well as the glorious warm voices of Barbara Fordham and Anje West. Nothing on the album will be missing!

While on Friday night at Finbar's Maleny, its the pure and simple duo, casual, free entry, early start - very relaxed. And though we have the Maleny Street Party going on outside - chances are the rain gods will drive a few good people in to sit and enjoy...

And I get to rehearse every day this week! And after a year of production and administration I feel like a singer again - beauty!

Thanks Martin Pearson for your kind words

I asked Martin Pearson to write about our live performances of the new songs. Oddly he's seen us more than anyone in Brisbane, since we had the pleasure of playing at Andrew Pattison's Winery weekend this year and the wonderful Neurum Creek Festival and he very kindly replied:

I remember Leah and Jamie from the early “Women in Voice” shows. She has a riveting stage presence (even in pyjamas) and he was an inspired musical director and formidable guitarist. So when I saw them again many years later I was expecting great things. I wasn’t disappointed.

The combination of finely modulated voice and tasty guitar is now being applied to songs about the histories of their own West End of the Brisbane River. It doesn’t get more real than writing about things at the end of your own street. The songs are masterfully crafted with moments of exquisite beauty.

I recommend them to your listening ear.

Thanks James Miller and friends

James Miller, our long term supporter, shot the clips below in three hours at the old Botanic Gardens. He had his film students work on it as an editing assignment and then finished the clips himself. Look on his youtube channel avonsfive and see his clips for Megan Sarmardin's show 'Blackbird' and Barbara Fordham's show 'Whoa Tilly'. He's a dead-set artist with colour! I love the look of the clips and setting aside the momentary 'Yes, I am that old...' chill of recognition, James has done us such a kindness adding vision to the sound. I reckon it's a bloody good sound but now we get to be the stars in our own home-grown movie.

Don't forget the launch coming up - information posted below...

Bottom of the River

Red Rose

Two confirmed album launches for 'Bottom of the River!

BRISBANE: Thursday December 9th 2010

The Brisbane Jazz Club, Kangaroo Point

$25 and $20 with complimentary CD

Doors open 6.30, music 7.30 - 10.00

Leah and Jamie with a flock of guest musicians and singers. Bookings from mid-November at www.brisbanejazzclub.com.au

MALENY: Friday Dec 10th at Finbar's

music from 6.30 - 9.00

Free Entry

The pure duo sound

Here we are - looking distinguished and handsome after a day of lip and finger syncing for a video shoot directed by the excellent James Miller. He's throwing the footage at his film students and the best cut will go up online in a couple of weeks.

How fortunate can you be?

Keep an eye out and we'll post it on this page.

Bottom Of The River

I've heard the new album, I like it a lot. It's well recorded, it's south-east qld music. There's a glare coming off it, it hurts my eyes in the middle of the day in january. There's a river in it, I could sit by it and drink liquids and watch stuff float by. There's a dark past but the sun's in my eyes and the rain washes it away every few years.

Bottom of the River

Two of Australia’s most eclectic acoustic roots performers,
Leah Cotterell and Jamie Clark have recorded their first originals album,
‘Bottom of the River’.

One by one these songs floated up from the bottom of the river.

The river meanders past the shipwreck on the riverbed, past the promenade of the midnight flower, and past the reverie of childhood. The river is a guide for the lost souls flying above. It’s the fluid spine of the richly composted life of the river city. The songs on Bottom of the River that aren’t about the river might as well be. They are about recollection, reminiscence and the river of time.


While their love for spirited musical performance brings these two together, time is the element that bonds them. In twenty years they’ve built many musical vehicles together, performing at major venues, at open air union meetings, at clubs in the Valley and ritzy functions on the Coast. Having clocked up over two hundred performances together (Jamie keeps a journal) performing country, jazz, gospel and folk, now for the first time Jamie Clark and Leah Cotterell have written an entire concert of original music for themselves.

Immersed in, and inspired by the work of giants like Mississippi John Hurt, Chet Atkins, and Bert Jancz, this is a collection of styles that showcase Jamie’s quiet mastery of accompaniment across DGAD folk, jazz and blues, bluegrass and gospel. Leah has sought to match Jamie’s clarity with words that sing themselves, language that sits flush to Jamie’s melodies, phrases full of rhythm and rhyme. For inspiration she drew on every classic song she’s ever learned, from writers like Jimmy Webb, Hank Williams and Cole Porter and of course, drawing from the well spring of traditional folk.