Roger Chapman - Live - Opera House, Newcastle 2002 (2022)

Roger Chapman has had a career most artists would sell their mother for. He didn't find fame fronting the Farinas during the British Invasion era, but that changed when the band transmogrified into Family in 1967. The group notched up a stream of hit singles and albums before divorcing in 1973, and while his next project, Streetwalkers, scored only once in the U.K., it proved far successful in Europe, as did his solo career, which the singer launched in 1979. Over the next two decades, Chapman continued releasing popular sets every year or so, and still regularly performs around the continent. This two-CD set, however, was recorded back in the U.K. in 2002 at the Newcastle Opera House. Needless to say, the British crowd demanded familiar Family numbers, and Chapman obliged, offering a slew of sympathetically arranged oldies, with the Chicago blues styled "Toe Nail Draggin'" the best of the bunch, while sprinkling the set with later numbers, including a fabulously steamy, nearly a cappella "Short List," and a trio of heavy-hitting covers. Backed by a tight quintet of easygoing musicians with a bluesy, R&B bend, and just enough nods to the artist's folky-prog past to keep the customers satisfied, Chapman proves that he remains one of the most devastating live performers, and devastatingly stylized vocalists of his generation. ~ Dave Thompson