Carol Bean & Costa Botes

Carol Bean, guitarist and singer, is presenting a range of songs from her three original albums: Read the Road Signs, Crossing the Dirty River [Ode Records], Next Bus Out [Press Go] along with those of recording artists who have influenced her song writing – namely American artists such as Lucinda Williams, Kevin Welch, Shawn Colvin, Tony Joe White and John Hiatt.

Joining her is guitarist and filmmaker Costa Botes. Best known as a documentary filmmaker, Costa has toiled over a string of quirky movies about stubborn eccentrics pursuing their unreasonable passions to a point where material failure starts to resemble a kind of nobility (Forgotten Silver, Struggle No More, The Last Dogs of Winter, Act of Kindness, Angie, When the Cows Come Home). Not many people know that deep in his heart, Costa is also a dedicated guitar nut and has spent most of his life playing stringed instruments.

In 2007, Carol and Costa, together with Braeburn Studio’s Robbie Duncan, produced a music documentary called ‘Yes That’s Me’ ‒ about bluesman Dave Murphy. The documentary was accepted to the NZ International Film Festival and received positive reviews from both the public and major film critics. For example, Colin Morris (Slipped Disc) wrote “Simple elegant shots of an artist plying his craft. A beautiful, relaxed but intense peek into studio like. Bravo!”

During this period, Carol often sat in Costa’s editing studio, annoying him no end by taking his musical instruments down off the wall and playing them one by one.

Finally, Costa gave in and the two started paying guitar together, quickly finding the tunes they most enjoyed. In October 2008, Carol invited Costa to play banjo for her Mount Misery String Band, debuting at the Wellington Folk Festival.

And hence began a musical journey through several reincarnations of Bean bands to today’s concert – Carol and Costa as a duo.

For their Folk @ The Fitz gig, Carol and Costa will be joined by Taranaki’s very own Wayne Morris on percussion.