"It takes two", as Marvin Gaye once sang, an observation that must now seem blindingly obvious to Stacey Earle. Though she married singer-songwriter Mark Stuart over 10 years ago, it took them a while to realise that they were more potent together than as solo artists. On their album released earlier this year, Never Gonna Let You Go, Earle suddenly sounded loose and liberated, an impression carried over into the duo's live performance.

While Earle takes more of the lead vocals, Stuart adds counterpoints, harmonies and guitar solos, maybe thrumming out a bass line or plucking out a solo in octaves. For Maybe That's Just Me or Go on From There, he switched between driving chords and nimble single-string runs. Apart from making the pair sound almost like a full-scale band, he seems to give Earle the confidence to wring the most out of her songs. She is still prone to peculiar face-pulling and eye-rolling, and her gurgly nursery-rhyme voice can make her sound like country music's answer to Shirley Temple, but her best songs have emotional depths and hidden strengths.

Not that Stuart is a mere sideman. Earle left the stage to him as he sang Boss is Watching, a swampy chain-gang song with more than a trace of John Fogerty in it, and rattled off a blitz of speedy strumming that suggest that inside Stuart an electric warrior is itching to get out. His version of Woody Guthrie's Curly Headed Baby included a parody of Willie Nelson that will probably get him tarred and feathered next time he goes to Texas.

For a finale, the pair walked through the audience singing an unaccompanied country hymn in memory of country music label boss Jack Emerson. This prompted a fight to break out by the bar, proving that you underestimate this ol' country moonshine at your peril.

· At the Soul Cafe, Maidstone (01622 765014), on Sunday. Then touring.