The Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking 2016 - Part 2

Christmas dinner fully digested?  Good, because here come few more platters of goodies.
You could call 2016 the Year of the Nimmos.  If Stevie Nimmo came up with my favourite studio album of 2016, his brother Alan’s outfit King King released a live album to rank alongside classics of the genre.   To put the icing on the cake, I was there at the Glasgow O2ABC gig in May when it was recorded, so I can testify to the fact that King King Live captured all the crackling intensity of that night.

Jo Harman lets her hair down

The support act on that tour, Dan Patlansky, turned plenty of heads with his live performances.  He also delivered an album, Introvertigo, that emphasised the waves made by its predecessor, Dear Silence Thieves - way more modern than your average blues-rocker, Boo Boo.  Wondering what sounds King King and Patlansky might make if they played together?  Well here they are, giving it big licks on the last night of that tour, with ‘Little Wing’.

A more rough and ready purveyor of originality was Big Boy Bloater, with his album Luxury Hobo.  Founded on R’n’B shot through with pub-rock Estuary Englishness, it still manages to fold in some other musical horizons.  Sadly I had to miss out on an opportunity to see Bloater live.  But the Bloat also does a nice line in quirky videos, so here he is with his band the Limits giving us ‘I Love You (But I Can’t Stand Your Friends)’.  Ah yes, a good old fashioned ‘brackets’ title!

Summertime brought the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, one of the highlights of which was Mr Sipp, the self-styled Mississippi Blues Child.  Now here is a guy who knows how to take classic electric blues and put on a show full of personality.  Check out this award-winning performance from the 2014 International Blues Challenge for evidence.

Vintage Trouble go native in Glasgow

From the Jazz & Blues Festival to the Edinburgh Blues’N’RockFestival, which furnished an early sighting of local band The Rising Souls in their newly electrified four-piece incarnation.  By the time the autumn came they were releasing a new four-track EP - featuring the title track 'Set Me Free' in the course of an impressively taut launch gig full of brand new material.  If you fancy the idea of Led Zeppelin having a love affair with Aretha Franklin, as they put it, then keep tabs on them in 2017.

Singer-songwriter and soul siren Jo Harman also pitched up at the Blues’N’Rock Festival, walking a tightrope between hold-your-breath sensitive ballads and shake-yer-booty bluesy soul.  Next year is a big one for Harman, whose much-touted second studio album People We Become is scheduled for release in February.  Three years have passed since her widely applauded debut Dirt On My Tongue, and it’s time for her to live up to her promise.  Here she is giving it plenty on ‘Through TheNight’.

What better way to close the Christmas Stocking than with American soul’n’blues stirrers Vintage Trouble?  Blues Enthused will actually be seeing out the year with them at their New Year’s Eve gig at the Sage Gateshead, and if they’re as good as they were at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow during the summer then it should be a helluva Hogmanay party.  Get in the festive mood with VT in festival mode, at Glastonbury 2015.

Jo Harman, Dr Feelgood - Edinburgh Blues'N'Rock Festival, 30 July 2016

This may be a blues festival, but “Ain’t nothing but the blues” isn’t really a slogan that fits Jo Harman.  Sure, she can give it big licks in the funky, bluesy soul department, as this set confirms.  But she also lays down a marker early on with ‘Cold Heart’, one of the keynote songs from her first album Dirt On My Tongue.  It’s a delicate, piano-led ballad, and Harman sings it with all the sensitivity the lyrics require, before the song builds and builds, and she matches the crescendo with a towering vocal.

Jo Harman gets lost in music

I have a sense that this kind of heart-on-sleeve material has a special appeal for Harman.  She serves up a cover of country song ‘That’s How I Got To Memphis’ in soulful fashion, garnished with a neat, brittle solo from guitarist Dave Ital, while ‘Lend Me Your Love’, from her forthcoming album scheduled for 2017, is another ballad with a barnstorming ending.  And she has more songs of this ilk in her locker - check out the aforesaid album Dirt On My Tongue.

But the soul-baring stuff is balanced with Jo getting her groove on, as it were.  ‘Through The Night’ is a particularly tasty slice of rocked up funk, with some licks that remind me of UFO’s ‘Rock Bottom’ of all things, while ‘Heartstring’ is a twanging thang, with a big bluesy bridge and a muscular organ solo from Paul Johnson.  ‘When We Were Young’, also from the next album, is danceable soul, featuring a whooping, octave-hopping vocal from Harman and honky tonk piano from Johnson.

Being sandwiched between a stonking, crowd-pleasing set from Bernie Marsden and the bill-topping rock’n’roll hit parade that is Dr Feelgood is a challenging gig for an emerging artist playing unfamiliar material, even one as talented as Harman.  She could do with working the whole of the stage a bit more, or releasing guitarist Ital from his corner to interact with her.  But quibbles aside, this was a polished set that must surely have won her some new fans.

The last time I saw Dr Feelgood was at the Retford Porterhouse in 1981, just as they were

Robert Kane rouses the rabble

about to release the compilation album Dr Feelgood’s Casebook, and they knocked my socks off.  Back then they still had three of the original members, the only newbie being Johnny Guitar on, er, guitar.  So the current day line-up featuring none of the original personnel is a bit like talking about my father's axe – it’s had three new handles and two new blades.

But guitarist Steve Walwyn, bassist Phil Mitchell and drummer Kevin Morris are all long-standing Feelgood alumni, well versed in the band's ethos. Vocalist Robert Kane has been with them a mere 17 years, and doesn’t have the harp chops or bristling, moody intensity of Lee Brilleaux – but who would?  But he gets into the songs and works the crowd with no shortage of energy, occasionally grabbing for his mike stand and missing, or leaning a tad heavily on Morris's drum kit.

The simple fact is that these guys are good enough to take the Feelgood repertoire by the scruff of the neck and make it shake, rattle and roll.  Right from the driving boogie of opener ‘Best In The World’ they demonstrate that the classics of Thames Delta R&B are still the real deal.

Frankly this stuff is beyond criticism.  But if you want some highlights then ‘If My Baby Quits Me’ grabs attention with a rumbling bass riff from Mitchell and sizzling Telecaster soloing from Walwyn, who goes on to deliver some thunderous slide on ‘Rollin’ An’ Tumblin’’.  ‘Back In The Night’ is a cue for crowd mayhem, and they nail the choppy attack of ‘Roxette’.  The outstanding ‘Down To The Doctors’ is milked with a delayed coda, and ‘Gimme One More Shot’ is Chuck Berry gone wild.

I could go on.  But the bottom line is that the Feelgood motto should be “Crank it up, and crank it out”.  It's a motto they live up to.

Jo Harman & Company - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 20 March 2015

Jo Harman doesn’t just take to the stage – she takes the stage.  Not having seen her live before, I was well prepared for a great singer, but her overall performance comes as a pleasant surprise.  Right from the start she is a commanding, full on presence – aided and abetted, perhaps, by the fact that most of her band are as titchy as she is herself.  But whatever they lack in stature, they make up for in quality, providing Harman with a platform from which she can shine.

And shine she does, demonstrating her vocal talents in a range of styles, from the delicate ballads like ‘(This Is My) Amnesty’ that are almost her trademark, sung with feeling and subtlety; to the Motown-ish soul vibe of ‘When We Were Young’, decorated by smooth harmonies from the band; and the up-tempo, driving ‘Through The Night’, on which she lets herself go during the towering climax powered by Stevie Watts’ keys.

Jo Harman gets down and gets with it at the Voodoo Rooms

Indeed one reason Harman remains a focal point throughout is that she visibly enjoys the contributions from her band members, interacting with them well on ‘Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City’, even if she slightly over-eggs the ending.  ‘Cold Heart’ though, which she rightly describes as the centrepiece of her debut album, beautifully balances fragility with passion.

Harman has to call a sudden halt during the intro of ‘Bless My Soul’, when she spots an audience member collapsing at the front of the stage.  The room is cleared while the punter gets medical attention, and thankfully comes round.  Naturally, it’s an awkward moment, but after the enforced hiatus she and the band regroup, guitarist Nat Martin leading the way with a big solo on ‘Sideways’.

A driving final segment includes the excellent ‘Underneath The River’, and a cover of Free’s ‘Ride With A Pony’ as a tribute to the late Andy Fraser, which Harman claims the band learned on the long drive to Edinburgh that day.  And there’s still time for her to cement her soul credentials with an encore of the Isley Brothers’ ‘Work To Do’.  It’s an impressive display all round, with the new songs and covers showing a broadening repertoire at her disposal.

Plaudits too to Perthshire support band Wang Dang Delta, an engaging bunch of greybeards who demonstrate a well-honed groove on a set of their material, with a bluesified version of Christy Moore’s ‘Ride On’ as a pleasing added bonus.  The interplay of guitar, keyboards and harmonica is smooth as silk, with deft touches of funk and swing.  And you can only applaud a rocking tribute to the A9 entitled ‘Ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-caravenette’.