IT is an artist’s lot to push their audience, not to play it safe or peddle their own or someone else’s nostalgia.

Ryley Walker, still closing in on 28, has the weight of critical expectations on his shoulders. The young Chicago singer-songwriter has been feted to an unholy band of late greats: John Martyn, Tim Buckley, Davey Graham and Tim Hardin.

While none of these artists achieved mainstream commercial success their work endures. Walker may not yet match up to their best moments, but he is certainly the spiritual and musical heir to Buckley. He shows an uncanny ability to stretch and evolve; from the finger-picking guitar of his 2014 debut to last year’s jazz folk of Golden Sings That Have Been Sung.

To a select few in Pocklington, Walker was good company; deeply into the music but fun between songs. His description of Pocklington as a sleepy city with psychedelic graveyards, and his Midwestern interest in East Yorkshire accents, Beverley delicatessen Adeli’s bike and coleslaw won over those present.

Walker grew up listening to guitar noise and then out-there world music and jazz, so the lack of hooks and choruses was not a shock. With his support band, fellow Illinoisans Health & Beauty, providing sympathetic support, there was the sense the Walker could have taken this music much further out if he chose.

His singing also resisted the urge to show-boat, but showed sure control: the startling way he spat the "fair play to you" line in Van Morrison’s Fair Play turned a mellow, pretty workmanlike original into something more nuanced.

His closing cover of Hardin’s If I Were A Carpenter took the rather trite and over-rated original and injected it with a serious dose of longing. His own work The Roundabout was easily as good, but mainstream acceptance is going to take time.