THE ONLY living cowboy from Hampstead?

Teddy Thompson is best known for his impeccable folk lineage, but is now forging a career that looks to country and western music for inspiration.

Starting the set with some new songs, Thompson's material was just a shade too close to Nashville. Mid tempo and heartfelt, strongly sung and without ever resorting to an American accent, it fell just the wrong side of prosaic and was too confined by the simple chords.

The quietly respectful audience pricked up their ears at Everyone Move It, a call to dance that was both deadly serious and tuneful. Better still was a dark drinking song that was the cousin of Merle Haggard's I'm Gonna Break Every Heart I Can (which lit up the second half). While the ability to convey menace through song is clearly inherited, Thompson's disconcertingly clenched jaw and fixed stare simultaneously ruled him out of X Factor and gave him credibility. His Hugh Grant style of between-song chat was at best puzzling.

To Thompson's credit, his covers from Up Front And Low Down were immaculately played, and faithful to the originals. Having tasted some of his songwriting, it was clear he was more than a karaoke George Jones. Without the finesse of the string quartet that graces the recorded versions, the set became too stuck in doleful and became dull.

At the death, his wonderful versions of Dolly Parton's My Blue Tears and She Thinks I Still Care snatched back victory and stopped everyone dead.