I hesitated before writing this post because I don't feel it is my place to criticise someone who is obviously well liked and well respected by many others, but am offering the following opinion in the hope that it will be helpful rather than hurtful.

Ron played at my local club a year or two back but did not go down very well and talking to people afterwards I found that enthusiasm was very muted. But Ron had been highly recommended by another performer who is a good friend of the club, and I was also familiar with two or three of his songs through other singers and so was looking foward to the night, rather than approaching it with any negative expectations.

I had no propblem with his accent. His 'singing' accent seemed entirely natural to him and suited both his appearance, personality and material, but I found the songs rather repetitive. The first couple went down well, but by the end of the first half I was finding the tunes all too similar to be memorable and that the words had begun to feel like an overdose of cliches. Ron is very good at taking familiar phrases and setting them into songs in a natural and rhythmic way, but after a while you can easily predict which phrases are going to crop up where and, because the lines are so familiar, they sort of wash over you without the meaning behind them troubling you too much. Eventually I found I was day-dreaming rather than concentrating.

I felt that in the second half Ron knew he was not receiving the attention he had hoped for. He seems like a really nice bloke and tried his best to make contact, but without a change in material he was largely unsuccessful. The shame was, I am sure that some of the songs were really very good ... but there was just too many of them for a sitting.

What I have written sounds very unfair, but it is an honest opinion. Having reflected on the evening, my suspicion is that had Ron interspersed his own material with a few traditional or familiar songs, it would have served to give us the opportunity to listen to each of his self penned songs as a peice in its own right, rather than absorbing a whole 40 minute spot as a continuous, unfamiliar offering. personally I would have benefitted from this and I think I might have left the club with good memories of some exciting new songs, rather than with a case of musical indigestion.

I'm sure both Ron and his songs deserve wider recognition and speak only with the intention of offering my own perspective on an evening with a new-to-Ron audience. I hope he will not take offence at anything I've said.