APRIL 2006
LISTINGS     HOME
   
Sat 1
Tony Alles Bluesville
featuring P.J. Baker

£5
With his deep, rich voice and skilful electric and acoustic guitar talent, local blues man Tony Alles shows his deep love and appreciation for the blues, bringing a fresh and innovative sound to the genre As well as original material, he reworks classic blues standards into funky, high octane shuffles. He is joined by renowned Nottingham harmonica player and vocalist P.J. Baker, Big Wayne Hogan on upright and electric bass and Jewellers Eye mainman Graham Summers on drums.
   
Sun 2
Deltahead
plus Misterlee
£5
www.deltahead.net
www.misterlee.co.uk
"Deltahead's live act is totally unique. A two piece from Stockholm, Sweden, they both sit at 28" Ludwig bass drums, separated by a radiogram type bass speaker emanating Daliesque horns. Benjamin then plays a stand up bass sitting down and David plays slide guitar, while they both sing and drum simultaneously with radio interference and occasional washboard! Has to be seen to be believed. Punk Blues Noir!"

   
Mon 3  
The City Acoustic Club
£1/free

Open mic every Monday, all welcome.
   
Tue 4  
Eddie Morton
£5adv £6door
www.bushburys.com

   
Wed 5
Mike Dowling
plus Morgan Findley
£6
www.mikedowling.com
If fine blues, bottleneck, and ragtime are your thing, don't pass up Mike Dowling. His singing and guitar playing are as natural as oak cask fermentation, leading to a heady brew that is truly pure of spirit. Fluid and precise as a guitarist, his gritty vocals have a sense of playfulness and bounce that's very appealing. He plays country blues, but throws in some really nice jazz and country swing, and covers a spectrum from Mississippi John Hurt to Wynonie Harris to The Delmore Brothers with   better known items as Mean Old Frisco and Key To The Highway thrown in for good measure.

   
Thu 6
Jeff Black
plus Steve Gifford
£6
www.jeffblack.com
The burly, bare-knuckled, blue-collar son of the Missouri plains with dark Irish blood, Jeff Black digs into tough topics with a gentle heart. There's nothing predictable about a Jeff Black lyric other than it will be sung robustly and it will head towards hope instead of dwell on despair. "Black is an artist of substance," wrote Billboard in a review that compared his piano ballads to Randy Newman and his rockers to Bruce Springsteen. Black has collaborated with everyone from Wilco to Iris Dement to Sam Bush and as anyone who's seen his moving, funny, and unpredictable concerts knows, he never plays the same show twice.
   
Fri 7
Dawson & The Dissenters
plus Cory Danluk & Sarah Card
£5
www.dawsonsmith.com
Rockin' blues and roots from this eclectic and electrifying band. Featuring consummate frontman Dawson Smith and the guitar wizardry of Simon Faulks both of whom deliver superb original songs and powerhouse vocals. Expect material from Dawson's two excellent solo albums, Valley Boy and the newly released, blues based album The River Road plus
a selection of well chosen blues and roots classics from the likes of Lucinda Williams, C.C. Adcock and John Hiatt.
   
Sat 8

Kansas City Faggots
Elvis: The Band
plus Reid Paley Trio
£5
www.reidpaley.com
From Folsom Prison Blues to Suspicious Minds this really will be a night to remember! So put on your cowboy hat and blue suede shoes and witness first hand the legendary Kansas City Faggots and the fantastic Elvis Band. Leicester legend Dan Britton leads the Faggots while Jason 'Swivel Hips' Spencer heads up the Elvis Band. Both groups feature the amazing guitar talents of Diesel Park West’s very own Rick Willson on guitar and the fantastic Neil Segrott on bass, with Pete 'Ronnie Tutt' Spencer and Lee Spencer completing the line up this really does promise to be a good one! Don’t miss it! “Yee Ha” and “Thank you very much”


   
Sun 9
Derrin Nauendorf
£5

www.derrinnauendorf.com
Renowned for his intense live shows and raw emotive music, Derrin Nauendorf’s music is hard to categorise,made up from many roots styles, blues, folk and Americana. Untamed acoustic guitar, cutting lyrics, a powerful, evocative voice and honest songs, delivered with passion, but twisted to a unique sound. “First impressions? One Australian guy with an acoustic guitar and his mate with a homemade drum kit. What would you think? Me too. I then listened to this live album and Derrin, guitar, sidekick and drums proceeded to blow me away.” – David Blue, Net Rhythms.

Kevin Thorpe
www.bluearmadillo.com
Former Out of The Blue frontman Kevin Thorpe's music is firmly rooted in the song writing styles of artists like Willie Dixon, Little Willie John, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Dr John and Lowell George. The result, powerful versions of songs by these writers and his own acclaimed material, saw Out of The Blue applauded as innovators, a band whose 'chops' were displayed alongside great songs, making them unique and influential on the British and European club and festival circuits.
   
Mon 10  
The City Acoustic Club
£1/free

Open mic every Monday, all welcome.
   
Tue 11
Adam Bomb
£5
www.adambomb.com
   
Wed 12
Paul Rishell & Anne Raines
plus The Blues Devils
£7adv £9door
www.paulandannie.com
Guitarist Paul Rishell and harmonica player Anne Raines base their ensemble playing style on close communication, listening keenly to other players to support rather than overshadow them, and their duo work is also marked by this sensitive interplay that has become central to their live performances. Although they have become known for their close attention to pre-war acoustic blues styles, Paul and Annie first found their musical common ground in Chicago/Texas-style electric blues. Their 2000 release Moving to the Country (2000), won them the W.C. Handy Award for "Acoustic Blues Album of the Year."
 
The Blues Devils
Three of Leicester’s finest blues talents have joined forces to create an extraordinary acoustic blues trio, which has been performing some storming gigs over the past twelve months. Together Mick Ridgeway (Mojo Hand), Bob Dayfield (Dr Bobs) and Tony Alles (Bluesville) combine three voices, acoustic & slide guitars and blues harp to breathe new life into a great selection of homegrown songs and well-loved standards.
   
Thu 13
Big Bill Morganfield
£10adv
www.bigbillmorganfield.net
"Chicago blues is a powerful force in the right hands, which, in this case, belong to the son of Muddy Waters. The comparisons are inevitable, but the big man is up to the challenge." - Entertainment Weekly.   As the son of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th Century, Bill meets many of the burdensome expectations placed upon him. His father's legacy lives on in the tools of his art, Big Bill has both Muddy's touring amp and guitars. More importantly, Bill carries Muddy's spirit and love for the blues. Bill won the 2000 W. C. Handy Award for "Best New Blues Artist".

  Ian Siegal Band
www.iansiegal.com

“You should be very proud to have this young man in your own country. You have someone right here who can really sing the Deep Blues. He’s got church in his voice. If my Daddy was alive today he'd say ‘That's my Boy!’" - Big Bill Morganfield (Muddy Waters’ son). “Grounded in tradition, airborne by imagination, this is one of the most inventive blues recordings ever made by a British artist.” - MOJO magazine Feb 2006. “The closest thing I’ve heard to Chester Burnett” - Jeff Beck “His lyrics are several notches above the usual Blues fare, displaying rare wit and originality” - Blues Revue. As well as opening tonights show with his band Ian will join Big Bill on stage later in the evening.
   
Fri 14  
The Drugstore Cowboys
plus The Sundown Sinners
www.sundownsinners.co.uk

£5
   
Sat 15
Ian Wills & The Willing
and C.Bob
£6
www.ianwillsandthewilling.com

Ian’s Wills journey from childhood tearaway to successful entrepreneur and original street poet, is a movie waiting to be made. Live Wills’ lyrics/poems are offset by music from his collaborative partners ‘The Willing’, who feature Jesse Wood (Ron Wood’s son) on guitar. Their music supports and adds theatre to the words, shifting from ‘The Wall’ era Pink Floyd to funk laden grooves reminiscent of Parliament or underlining the weighty comparisons of Ian Wills to Ian Dury. Is this a band? Is this poetry? Is this a kind of musical or rock opera? All we can say is that it is the modern storytelling of everyday people’s, everyday struggles.

  Country Joe McDonald (solo)
www.countryjoe.com
“And it’s one-two-three what are you waitin’ for?” Country Joe MacDonald was a charter member of the San Francisco hippie hall of fame. He was right there with Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Skip Spence and Jerry Garcia and the rest of the dudes and dudettes who made the San Fransico Bay Area so vibrant (stoned?) in the mid-to-late ’60s. With Country Joe And The Fish, he made music that espoused his political views through experimental acid rock and good-timey, folk sing-along songs that had them all joining in at Monterey and Woodstock. ‘And it’s five-six-seven, isn’t it really great?” Country Joe is coming to bring a genuine blast of hippie sunshine to The Musician. You could resist the draft, but you can’t resist Country Joe.  
   
Sun 16
Buster James
plus Ana Egge
£6
www.busterjames.com
www.anaegge.com

Formed in the late ‘70s Buster James have been thrilling crowds all over the UK and Europe with their own energetic brand of blues and boogie for two decades. A blistering live act, their line-up contains players who have performed and recorded with artists as diverse as Steve Marriot, Dire Straits, Dave Stewart, Mungo Jerry, FM and Iron Maiden. This inventive and exciting band has six available CD’s of mainly self-penned material as well as unique versions of classics such as Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” and Neil Youngs “Rocking in the Free World”.

   
Mon 17  
The City Acoustic Club
£1/free

Open mic every Monday, all welcome.
   
Tue 18
The Black Diamond Heavies
£5
www.blackdiamondheavies.com

We like our Southern blues-rockers bestial and destructive and the Black Diamond Heavies slam together piano, harp, slide guitar and drums, growling and spewing with as much poison as bourbon in their blood. Their sound is homicidally distorted and their songs, guttural, juke-joint blues, the kind that shake the moonshine from your ass pocket and transform your fists into the devil sign, aren't immune to the trite sway of nostalgia and romanticism. Those craving no-bass electro-blues could do much worse than the Heavies, but consider yourself warned: By comparison, the White Stripes are a hipster minstrel show.

Jawbone
www.dangblues.com
Jawbone is over-driven 12 Volt DC enhanced non-oscillating six string harmonicanized slide-blues holler stomps of 2-Headed Dogs Hands With 6 Fingers, Tombstone Chevys, Japanese Zeros, Holy Coca-Cola Donkey Oil, The German Flu Deathbed Redemption Russian Coal Mine - Amen. Or, to put it another way, Jawbone is a one-man-band blues assault from Detroit that has a sound that strips the Blues to its bare-bones with a primeval stomp that's the missing link between Lightning Hopkins, Zoot Horn Rollo and The White Stripes.




  The Dirty Backbeats
www.thedirtybackbeats.co.uk
Leicester based psychedelic, blues, punk, rock and roll band The Dirty Backbeats have been kicking about since 2003. Now playing around the country with acts such as Vincent Vincent & The Villains, "They sound like the Kings Of Leon meets the Sensational Alex Harvey Band with a bit of The Coral thrown in." - Steve Lamacq - BBC 6 Music 2005, or "Like a gypsy circus troupe with a rabid Jack White ringmaster. The Dirty Backbeats act like they're the first to grow their hair and play awesome psychedelic garage rock." - The Fly 2005. "Manically brilliant live with original killer tunes that make you wanna rock n roll." - Luke Wilkins - Kerrang! Radio 2005.

plus Post War Years
   
Wed 19
The Stevie Nimmo Band
£6adv
www.bluearmadillo.com
Over the past decade, as one half of The Nimmo Brothers, Stevie Nimmo has earned the respect of audiences all over the world. Held in high regard by his peers, he is rightly considered as one of the finest blues musicians on the scene today. Though brother Alan who was the more dynamic performer of the siblings in The Nimmo Brothers show, Stevie however brought a certain depth, emotion and above all songwriting power to this extraordinary partnership that saw them captivate and enthral audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. 
   
Thu 20
Christine Collister
plus Dan Arbrose
£7adv
www.christinecollister.com
"A voice personally delivered by God." - The Times   Christine Collister came to national attention singing the 1987 theme for the BBC's The Life and Loves Of A She Devil. Following a fruitful association with The Richard Thompson Band, she enjoyed a period of critical and commercial success in a seven-year partnership with Clive Gregson and has become a phenomenal live act. "A killer voice, as full as Dusty Springfield or as blue as Alison Moyet" - Froots   "Christine Collister can sing the birds down off the trees and send them back with a tiny flick of her vocal chords." - Mojo
   
Fri 21

Diesel Park West
plus The Duckworths
£10
www.dieselparkwest.com
Some bands belong to their own time, others trespass on decades where they don't really belong. Diesel Park West must have seemed to some people back in '89, with the release of the far-reaching Shakespeare Alabama, the most welcome and liberating guitar band anyone had heard for years. A lot of artists who have enjoyed massive acclaim and success since, may well tip hats towards the Diesels for being pioneers in the re-emergence of the guitar as the primary sound of contemporary music. Add to that song writing that both provokes and reassures... sometimes within the same lyric...then maybe its appropriate to start spreading the word.

   
Sat 22  
Private Party
   
Sun 23
Colvin Quarmby Band
plus Table Nine
£6
www.colvinquarmby.com
Although originally a duo Gerry Colvin (vocals/lyrics) and Nick Quarmby (bass), joined by Dave Dutfield (guitars) and Martin Fitzgibbon (drums) are now firmly established as a dynamic and highly popular live attraction. But it's lyrically that they come into their own. Most songs are commentaries and observations about everyday things, beautifully written works on the more 'mundane', urban side of life, which, in itself, is quite a welcome change. Think Squeeze, think Paul Weller, mix those two styles of songwriting together and you'll get something that roughly approximates Gerry Colvin's style. Throw into the mix a subtle touch of contemporary country, some folk and you're there!
   
Mon 24  
The City Acoustic Club
£1/free

Open mic every Monday, all welcome.
   
Tue 25
Geoff Muldaur
plus Blues Connection
£8adv £10door
www.geoffmuldaur.com
One of the great voices to emerge from the folk/blues scenes centred in Cambridge, MA and Woodstock, during the '60s. Geoff made a series of influential recordings with Paul Butterfield's Better Days, his then wife Maria and notables such as Bonnie Raitt and Jerry Garcia. He dropped out of sight in the mid-1980's for a working sabbatical, but continued, to hone his craft, 'flying beneath radar'.  "His voice - reedy, quavering, otherworldly - is so unusual that the music he sings becomes little more than a context, a jumping-off point." - the New York Times   "There are only three white blues singers, and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them." - Richard Thompson
   
Wed 26  
The Acoustic Collective presents...
Tara & Andy + Chloe Singer + Steve Parker
+ Andy Griffiths
£3
   
Thu 27  
Les Barker
plus Steve Parker
£6
www.mrsackroyd.com
   
Fri 28
The Hackensaw Boys
plus The Smokey Grass Mountain Boys
£7
www.hackensawboys.com
With origins that effectively pre-date the Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk revolution spawned by 2000's aptly titled O Brother soundtrack, The Hackensaw Boys are surprisingly well steeped in the picked, howled traditions of the American south. Raw and punchy, their music is more about spirit than study, a spirit that has the palpability of an Appalachian mist. Capable of deconstructing and enlivening age-old traditions with new visions, somehow, the band infuses their grassy tornado with brazen punk attitude and catchy pop structure, while simultaneously remaining vehemently sincere. Think of the Ramones mixed with the Carter Family and you begin to get a clear picture. Somewhere, Bill Monroe is smiling.
   
Sat 29
7storysoul
plus John Lester
£5
www.7storeysoul.co.uk
Back again after their debut gig in January, 7Storeysoul are a celebration of quality 1970’s soul and funk. Covering some rarely performed soul gems plus some well-loved classics of the era, their set ranges from the socially conscious soul of the early 70s, including Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder, to the later feelgood funk of bands such as Stretch, The Crusaders and The Average White Band. They also perform some original material in the same soul/funk vain. 7Storeysoul’s combination of laid-back grooves with strings and harmonies results in a sweet summery sound guaranteed to get you moving!
   
Sun 30
Rory McLeod
£7adv £8door
www.rorymcleod.com
Rory Mcleod - ex-circus clown and fire-eater. A one-man soul band, poet and storyteller, singing his own unique, upbeat dance stories. A modern travelling troubadour using tap shoes, acappella, harmonica, guitar, trombone, spoons, finger cymbals, bandorea, djembe and various percussion instruments. Rory has travelled the globe for different reasons at different times, from Asia to the Middle East from Gambia to Cuba, Central America, Australia, North America, Canada, Europe and other nooks and crannies of the earth. "You don't listen to McLeod you travel with him" - City Hub, Sydney

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