Music returns to Linlithgow venue

The popular Red Door music promotions at St Michael’s Scottish Episcopal Church in Linlithgow High Street return on Friday 30 September when the widely acclaimed singer-songwriter-guitarist Rory Butler showcases songs from a new recording.

Butler, who released his first album, Window Shopping on the leading folk music label Vertical Records in 2020, has been likened to an amalgam of John Martyn, Nick Drake and Jackson Brown. He was also cited as a highlight when he took part in a star-studded John Martyn tribute concert at Celtic Connections a few months before Window Shopping’s release.

Red Door spokesman Robin Connelly is delighted to bring music back to St Michael’s after an enforced two-and-a-half-year break and to have Butler open the new series of concerts.

“Before the Covid pandemic we’d built up considerable momentum in terms of audiences and people knew that they could expect high quality concerts,” he says. “St Michael’s has a modest capacity but we were able to attract top line musicians including Martin & Eliza Carthy and Chris Wood from the folk side and jazz musicians such as the great singer Tina May. Rory played a superb gig for us early on, so it’s great to have him reopening our programme.”

Instrumental duo Holm will support Butler and the concert will be followed by others featuring Glasgow-based saxophonist Brian Molley and pianist Tom Gibbs, on Friday 28th October, and fiddle and harp duo Chris Stout & Catriona McKay on Friday 18^th November.

“Brian Molley’s latest album, Intercontinental, has been praised from Canada to Australia and we’re really pleased to welcome him, with Tom, a superb pianist, to Red Door for the first time,” says Robin Connelly. “Chris and Catriona have appeared for us before, in a really sensational concert that stands out as a high point in our programme, so we’re excited to have them play for us again.”

Tickets for Red Door concerts are available online through Eventbrite.