Having seen his brothers (and former bandmates) in Birmingham not much more than three weeks ago, last night it was the turn of eldest Felice brother, Simone, playing at the start of his lengthy UK tour at Oxford’s Jericho Tavern.

Simone Felice is a songwriter of rare talents, someone who has experienced considerable highs and lows in his relatively short career and whose two close encounters with death have left him well placed to document tales of tragedy and to thread an authentic melancholy narrative through much of his new self-titled album.

Playing live he lacks the more obvious ragged, rustic charm of his brothers, instead relying on warmer, lusher acoustics with picked guitar lines and a gentle organ sound. He chats amiably and with good humour between each song, often in stark contrast to the subject matter. He deadpans about his mother starting to notice her sons’ songs on the radio and asking why they were always about murder, guns, whiskey, or car-jackings before introducing the wonderful Don’t Wake The Scarecrow as a song about a heroin-addicted prostitute who dies at the end.

These are songs and stories shot through with contemplation and reflection. Opener New York Times is about Michael Jackson, Stormy-Eyed Sarah about a long-lost first love, a feisty preacher’s daughter who would get beaten black and blue, and album stand out Hey Bobby Ray is the bleakly unflinching story of retribution for a sexual predator. From his Duke & The King days we get the wary If You Ever Get Famous and Summer Morning Rain, while the mood is briefly broken for the uplifting 60s gospel folk of You & I, a paean to daughter Pearl.

All too quickly we are at the encore singalong of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, which leaves the crowd swaying gently along to the echoing refrain as the last notes fade and disappear into the Jericho’s cramped confines. Given his back story it was an appropriate way to end the night, and it is a memorable one for all concerned.

Buy the album from Amazon here.

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Download The Duke & The King – If You Ever Get Famous mp3 (from Nothing Gold Can Stay)

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