Katie Docherty is a singer-songwriter, who now lives on a hill farm in the beautiful and sometimes remote North Pennines. Originally hailing from Teesside, where whe was born in 1983, her work is said to be “rooted in a craggy North East landscape.” She is an award-winning songwriter who formed her band the Navigators in 2018. The dynamic and power in their music is often described in a way that suggests that the whole is bigger than the component parts.
Katie Doherty and the Navigators at Alphabetti
The opening song set the scene as it was about playing music, with refrain “We will come and play” and featured some really nice interplay between the fiddle and melodion.
Katie sang a song called “She is”, which was written during lockdown as people sent Katie postcards about their feelings about Northumberland, as if it was a human. The song was a heartfelt ballad, about thinking of home, including the line, ‘When you think of home you think of her’ It was augmented by a really nice fiddle solo, after which the song built to a fine crescendo.
The next song, Angry Daughter, was a tribute to those who stand up to injustice, sung passionately, with a compelling melody. An ode to resilience…
Then came a song from Katie’s first album called Bridges, about James from Felling who had been stationed off the coast of Java in the Second World War. This was a song about coming home from war. It was poignantly called ‘Bonny Laddie’, because bonny laddie was what James used to call others, but it was his wife calling him that in the song. It was another tender heartfelt ballad.
Ending the first set was another people and place song, this time about Wallsend Memorial Hall. Katie told us how in 2012, the ballroom had been refurbished and how someone had told her told a story of how her mother and father had met there and gone on to celebrate their 50th anniversary there. It was in ¾ time to give the feeling of a dance tune and indeed Katie introduced it, saying that it was a ‘Viennese Waltz’. It also featured some lovely interplay between singing and fiddle.
The second half began with a few beautifully played tunes without Katie and then Katie came on and sang what she described as an idealistic song about people coming together during the pandemic, with the line “take me to a place where there are no cold hearted liars”.
Josephine Butler was a social reformer from Northumberland and Katie spoke about how she was writing a musical about her. The song came from the musical and was entitled: “How am I supposed to sing when the world doesn’t like anything “.
Next up was the song Tiny Little Shoes about her son and the travails of parenting, with the crowd singing along, as they were on the last song ‘We Burn’ about how we burn with grief, with love and we sing high, sing low…
Most deservedly Katie and the band got an encore. It was another lovely people song, called Red Dress, about a friend called Lizzie, Katie had known when working in retail, while at Newcastle University, Lizzie had been told by her mother to wear red if she needed to have more confidence. Even though Lizzie is now in New Zealand, she is still with Katie in many ways…
Katie Doherty
I managed to catch up with Katie during the interval and asked her a couple of questions:
What inspires you?
“Story telling. My songs are all about story telling about people, place, landscape and celebrating places, finding beauty in the mundane”
What does the North East mean to you?
“I love the North East. There is nowhere else like it anywhere in the world.”
Comment
This was an excellent evening’s entertainment, with beautifully crafted songs about people and places, sang and played with real feeling. Not only was the music excellent, but Katie had a really nice way of relating to the audience, very relaxed and natural. Katie is a very warm and a natural story teller and it was also notable that there was a wide range of ages among the people in the audience.
This the first time I had had the privilege of seeing and hearing Kate…but it may well not be the last!
Peter Sagar saw Katie Doherty at Alphabetti Theatre.
More reviews from Newcastle Fringe
‘‘Grandma’s House’ at The Biscuit Factory
Café Boheme by Headway Arts at The Cumberland
‘Howling at the Moon’ at Newcastle Fringe
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