Blog

So last Sunday's jam at The Auckland  was the place to be last weekend. So many of the local celebs were there, it was quite something to behold. Among the fair crowd, all of whom got up and joined the music making at some point in the afternoon was Sally Strawberry (see previous Dec 13th blog for details of her latest release) who gave a stirring rendition of St Louis Blues  and her own 'Small town which I always end up singing all day afterwards! Chris Morely head Bonobo usually pops over and this week was no exception, plus the irrepressible PJ Walker with his Johnny Cash and R&R songs done as only PJ can and not forgetting our own Bluesman Andy Broad of course who is oft heralded as Portsmouth's King of the Blues who runs the whole shebang. We also had Steve Roux of the Brass Knuckles in the house along with Jon Gooding (sax), I tell you the audience really had some of the finest Hampshire musos perform for them for nothing! Something that always strikes me when I see Andy and Steve play together is that though they are both highly respected and significant local musicians neither of them tries to ego the other one off the stage, there's no battle of the riffs or fight for the mic, rather a complimentary merging of styles and sharing of space which tells us, I think, not only that they are both quite confident of their abilities, they are both genuinely great guys.

So, rehearsals were a small gathering of songwriters only this week (me and Andy) and we'd started work on a new song last week which we were able to pretty much finish this week. It's called 'No state of Grace' (clue was in the title see?!). Words had previously been put to music that we'd forgotten, so this is a rework in a way but I hope it's going to work up to one of the favourites. Definite bluesy number in 6/8, it ends with a vocal pedal over the guitar, toooooo cool. I can't wait till we've worked it up for performance, it will be ready for the next gig on 23rd of March, also at the Auckland (see giglist) so come on over and hear it!