In her short lifetime Patsy Cline set a template for the definitive country torch song. With a sultry vocal style drenched in yearning, delivering musical tales of heartbreak and longing, the American singer recorded a clutch of studio albums and a string of hit singles before dying tragically in a plane crash 60 years ago aged just 30.
Her signature song, Crazy, has become a standard and a karaoke classic, and until Shania Twain came along she held the record for the largest-selling album by a female country artist. Plus her catalogue has provided a rich source of inspiration for some stellar admirers - the trailblazing k.d. lang has hailed Cline as her idol and was once backed by a group called The Reclines, and you can hear clear echoes of Cline's vibrato-laden voice in the recent work of the acclaimed Angel Olsen.
John Grant can be added to the list, too. He's such a big fan of Cline's that he decided to team up with fellow singer-songwriter Richard Hawley to perform an entire set of her repertoire as one of the concert highlights of this year's Manchester International Festival.
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US musician Grant, who unlike Cline found success later in life after reaching his 40s, has released a series of confessional solo LPs and wears his heart on his sleeve in a similar way to Cline, crooning with a sumptuous baritone. Meanwhile Sheffield-born Hawley is himself a connoisseur of the sentimental side of country, having mastered both the tear-jerking vocal technique and the echo-laden guitar twang necessary to pay full maudlin tribute.
The band - Hawley plus drummer Dean Beresford, bassist Colin Elliot, keyboard player Jon Trier and second guitarist Shez Sheridan - take their positions on stage in the Aviva Studios' Hall and strike up the intro to Crazy Arms before Grant appears, resplendent in a rhinestone-studded suit. He calls the MIF commission a "huge honour" and from the off it's clear that, for him, these tunes hold plenty of personal significance.
"I think that was one of the songs that was on the jukebox at this bar I used to go to called The Cruise Room," he recalls, dedicating the number to a friend he went to that very bar with in the 1980s, and adding with a wave: "She's here tonight, all the way from New York."
Grant, who's openly gay and has in the past described his struggles growing up in a conservative Christian environment, teases out LGBTQ+ readings of the material. "Many people don't realise that this next song was probably the first documented song that talks about cruising," is how he introduces Walkin' After Midnight, tongue perhaps in cheek, and describes There He Goes as "the theme song to my romantic life".
The show is a casual affair but the band are well-drilled and pull the arrangements off with aplomb. Hawley - who, surprisingly, does not take the mic all night - dispatches some outstanding, Twin Peaks-esque baritone guitar on Sweet Dreams, and Crazy - when it comes - is taken at a delicate shuffle as Grant breathes new life into the familiar melody.
But the highlight might be Strange, which blends a perky rhythm with a lyric about a broken relationship. "This one might be my very favourite," ponders Grant beforehand, and it could be his finest effort of the evening.
However, after around 90 minutes of demanding vocal work he jokes that his "bedraggled larynx can't take much more", and it's time to finish with two numbers - a rollicking Blue Moon Of Kentucky and reflective ballad If Only I Could Stay Asleep.
The applause that follows as the company takes a bow proves the fun, novel endeavour's been a success, and though there's pretty much no exposition given to the audience on Cline's history, maybe Grant understandably feels that isn't his role. A UK tour is already lined up, a promising sign of the greater catalyst MIF can be with a new permanent home.
