I was recently accused (and I use the word correctly) of being a Blues 'purist'.

It made me wonder what this means.

Does it mean that I think that Blues is something that should only be played by people, wearing suits, that slavishly copy old records note for note and play only old songs?

Does it mean that I think that the music should continue to be played as it was, without any modern influence? That the Blues ended in about 1955 and that nothing since is of any worth?

Both would be untrue.

While I love what could be called 'traditional' Blues I also have numerous CD's in my collection by artists such as; Johnny Winter, Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, North Mississippi Allstars, The Black keys, 22-20's, Gomez, Soledad Brothers, Chuck E. Weiss, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart and, of course Taj Mahal. This is just a selection, representative of some of the artists whose music I love and who are trying to do different things with the Blues form. Whether it's Rock, Punk, African, Psychedelic they have all added different elements to the music to create something a little different.

I also regularly attend gigs of artists I think may be doing something a little different, but who I have never heard. I may read about them online or in a magazine but I'll take a chance, hand over my money and see what happens. Over the last few years I have seen, just off the top of my head; Mr. David Viner, Dave Acari and Son Of Dave. (I've never bothered with Seasick Steve, as I think he's not really doing anything new and he can't play for shit! However, I'm not denying he's got to be good for the Blues.) I'm also keen on bands such as Hijack Oscar and Missing Cat, who are trying to do something a little different with Blues as a base.

The music should evolve and Blues artists have often embraced technology and other music forms to improve their sounds. Robert Nighthawk was among the first musicians to play an electric guitar, trying to create a new sound. Little Walter started pushing the limited amplification equipment he had available to it's very limits in an attempt to catch some of that big, fat sound he heard in horn players like Charlie Parker. Blues musicians should take their influences from where ever they hear them and incorporate them into their Blues. Recently rap and Hip Hop have been combined with the Blues, with varying degrees of success.

I think it's all very healthy and some of the new sounds are terrific, and vital if the music is to survive.

I have an open mind when it comes to Blues.

However, let me tell you what I don't like and what I don't think is healthy for the music.

What I don't like is much of the second rate Rock which is often passed off as Blues these days. Take a look at any gig listing for almost any 'Blues' festival or 'Blues' club, especially in the UK. You'll find many acts who are playing derivative Rock with only the most tenuous link to the Blues.

I once read an interview in Blues Revue where somebody said the problem with Blues/Rock is that it uses the worst elements of both. Take the clichéd posturing and repetition of some Blues and add it to the self-indulgence and egotism of Spinal tap Rock and you'll find yourself with a music lacking in depth, emotion and humour.

That's exactly what we've ended up with. To me, the sound of endless, meaningless guitar solos with ersatz emotion and technical masturbation is tired and old. The format is tired and out-dated and impossibly dull. You could take CD's by any number of these artists, stick them in you CD player, listen to them blind-folded and after only a few songs be totally unable to distinguish them from one another. One ever expanding pool of guitar wank.

Just as once the countless bands cranking out 'Dust My Broom' or 'Big Boss Man' turned the music into a parody (Can Blue Men Sing The Whites?) now the countless bands playing 'Red House' or 'Pride and Joy' are doing them same.

Photos in the magazines show a stream of  (mainly overweight) geezers in black T-shirts, often sporting inappropriate cowboy hats, nearly all playing Fender Strats and pulling ugly 'cum-faces' as they squirt a million notes out of a Marshall stack.

If the first Blues I ever heard was this terminal kak, I'd have moved quickly on to something else. But still, visit you local Club or Festival and this is what you get.

It's not Blues, no matter how many 12-Bar shuffles you play.

There is obviously an audience for this. It's just not a Blues audience. There may be elements of Blues in the music but it's Rock, really. Rock is fine, just stop telling me it's Blues and that I'm narrow minded for not liking it.

So, if being a 'purist' means that I dislike dull, non-descript music which requires little imagination to play or listen to and has only the barest echo of real feeling and that instead I like music played with some thought, passion and creativity then I'm pleased to be a 'purist'.

And you should be one too.

Mojo Buford, The Cluny, Newcastle 22.4.08

This was Mojo Buford's first visit to Newcastle and an evening of high quality Chicago Blues was expected by the sizable audience.

After an indifferent support act the show proper started. Mojo's band, consisting of guitarist Tommy Allen, drummer Doug McMinn and bassist Chris Lomas appeared and assaulted the audience with a noisy 35 minute set of bog-standard Blues/Rock complete with oodles of overblown guitar-twaddle and twang.

This opening salvo left many of us wondering how the ageing (and ailing) Mojo Buford would be able to follow. Mojo eventually took to the stage to warm applause. Seated on a chair in the middle of the stage Mojo, singing and playing harp through the same mic, presented a selection of Chicago Blues standards which leaned heavily on the material of his old boss, Muddy Waters.

Sadly, Mojo is a spent force. His voice is fine but age and ill health have robbed him of the strength to play harp with much of the skill and power he once had. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe anyone expected to see Mojo leap around the stage blowing the blues like a young man of twenty. The audience expected, not unreasonably, to see and hear Mojo Buford play the music for which he is renowned, backed by a band that understood his music and who were capable of the subtlety and restraint required to deliver the goods without stealing the limelight. 

However, somebody should have told the band that this was Mojo Buford's gig. Instead, this seemed to be 'The Tommy Allen Show'. Whenever Mojo ran out of lung power he gave the guitarist a solo while he recovered. This gave Allen the excuse to play loud, lengthy and long in a style far removed from the understated power of Chicago Blues. In fact the guitarist dominated proceedings all night; filling every gap with inappropriate fret-waffle. At times it seemed that guitarist and drummer where in competition to see who could play faster, louder. Mojo was often almost totally drowned out. These kinds of performances get Blues a bad name.

Mojo and the band were totally mismatched. Mojo needed sympathetic backing and only bassist Chris Lomas tried to provide this. It was heart-breaking to see an artist like Mojo Buford treated so dis-respectfully and those responsible really ought to be ashamed.

I have subsequently spoken to people who attended Mojo's other gigs in both Keighley and York and they relayed almost identical stories.

It is very sad that Mojo's farewell tour should be so marred, let's hope we never see it happen again to another artist.

Now, please bear in mind that this is a very restrained report of my (and lots of other peoples) feelings about this gig. I just wanted more people to know how awful this show was and who's fault this was. It's even more sad since Mojo has since been taken to hospital and, the last I heard was very ill.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Dec 27th will see the launch of a new Jug Band, featuring ourselves with the legendary Hokum Hotshots and (occasionally) Rob Mason.

Jug Band music is a wonderful thing and if you've never heard any I suggest you get up immediately and go and find some, go and get yourself a CD (or one of those new-fangled down loads) of the Memphis Jug Band, or Gus Cannons Jug Stompers and open your ears to a new sound!

Our Jug Band is in many ways a tribute to the wonderful and much missed Brian Cookman, who died three years ago. Brian was certainly a huge influence on me and was in fact the first gig I was ever taken to, at the age of 12. His mixture of great material, played beautifully and delivered with some of the best banter and jokes I have ever heard left and indelible mark upon me. Along side the Hokum Hotshots he's probably the biggest influence on me and my playing.

So, it's all his fault. The bastard.

Our next gig will be at Brooks Blues in London on Feb 22nd and will be a tribute gig for Brian with all money raised going to MacMillan Nurses.

Our Jug Band will feature the usual (!) array of guitars, washboards, Jugs, spoons, kazoos, mandolins and ukeleles and harmonicas and a very generous dollop of old fashioned silliness.

More news etc as and when.

As Brian once said; "That's plucking marvelous!"

Last night's gig was dreadful. We were booked to play at venue we had never performed at before and as usual, there is always a slight trepidation before such a show. You're never quite sure what might be in store for you and more often than not you find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Last night was not like that.

Last night was awful. The pub was the only bar in a tiny village in Cumbria, the only other forms of entertainment being the Chruch Hall and incest. (Incidently they hold regular incest nights at the Chruch Hall, thus killing two birds with one stone, sharp instruments being too advanced.) We finished every song to an icy silence, with a hint of violence, apart from two very nice people who clapped at most songs. It would have been far better if we had just gone and performed in their living room. The pub had the ambience of the Slaughtered Lamb ('Stay on't roads lads. Keep off t'moors.) Don't get me wrong, it was nice pub with a thriving restaurant. It was just the people that sucked. (Blood, probably.)

The bulk of the audience was made up of, well, hillbillies. Young lads who spent the week up hills with sheep, staring at things and pointing at clouds.Time passes very slowly for them as even the sheep can outwit them and so their only chance of sexual relief is with each other and they can't undo their trousers as only their mother knows how to fasten them. Every Friday night they come down from the grassy slopes to drink cans of beer and gaze in awe at the electric lights. Everything that has a pulse they either want to fuck or kill and possibly both.

We played our arses off, determined not leave without giving it everything we had. We played the two longest 45 minute sets of our life, ending, drenched in sweat, to the kind of silence normally only found in space. We finished at 10.45pm and were in the van loaded up and ready to go at 11.05. That's taking down a full PA, and packing up two guitar amps, leads, three guitars and a harp amp. There was a sense of urgency.

We got out of there as fast as we could, sure that at any moment we'd be knocked unconscious and wake to find our selves inside a blazing whicker man while the locals, naked and daubed in wode frolicked and danced around us.

Promoters really should check venues out before they book artists, shouldn't they?

Let's just be thankful it wasn't a full moon.

Here are another couple of my YouTube posts.

First up is Rob Mason playing some incredible harmonica!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzgUf0Fd8gY

 And this is the legendary Hokum Hotshots (with Rob Mason) playing a Memphis Jug Band tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5232jeoDz0c

Enjoy!

Here are some clips of Jim Murray, Snakehips O'Donnel and Alan Jones. There's a couple of Blind Willie McTell tunes and a little Elmore James too! Please check them out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMkO1Hulmcw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k01ob3qLWmk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilu0_SzFk4Q

These are some video clips of some good friends of ours. These were filmed at Alleycatz on the Sunday afternoon of Dundee Blues Bonanza 2007. These fellas are great and you should check them out!

 There are more to come too.

This is Jim Murray playing a Blind Lemon Jefferson Song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNamNUK5TRw

This is Graham Robinson and Snakehips O'Donnell playing a Blind Boy Fuller number.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Z4FWvSdq0

We'll be appearing at Colne Blues Festival with these in August.

Billy and I are proud to announce that we will be be appearing  with the legendary David Honeyboy Edwards at the Cluny, Newcastle, on Thursday August 16th. (with great thanks to the Jumpin' Hot Club team and especially Shipcote!)

For those of you that don't know Honeyboy is the last of the original Delta Blues men! He was there the night Robert Johnson was killed and made his first recordings for Alan Lomax on the same trip that Lomax recorded Muddy Waters and Son House .

His whole life, which you can read about in his excellent autobiography "The World Don't Owe Me Nothin'", is the story of the blues and over his 92 years Honeyboy has crossed paths and played with everybody you could care to imagine, from Robert Johnson and Big Joe Williams; Muddy and the Wolf; Robert Lockwood, Little Walter... the list is endless.

It's a great honour for Billy and I to share a stage with this great man.

We don't often get asked for requests, when we do we'll try and play something to keep them happy. It depends on the request. I refuse to play Mustang Sally for instance. You have to have standards.

A large and very loud woman at a gig in Cumbria said to me after a show in a noisy bar that we'd have gone down better if we'd played "something they knew". I pointed out that it was much better, musically, for us to play the songs that we knew. She was a pain in the arse. She never shut up through most of our set, shouting comments in between songs etc and then she got herself worked into quite a huff when we started heckling back. We were better at it than she was.

On Friday I got asked if we would play something by the Blues Brothers. No, we wouldn't. However, at the end of the night Billy told her that we were going to play something by the Blues Brothers and we launched into "Ride and Roll" by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. We got everyone singing, including the lady who made the request. At the end of the night she thanked us for playing something by the Blues Brothers as she had all their records. She went home happy and hopefully has searched every record for "Ride and Roll".