Having attended the Muddy Waters tribute night and missed the Cyril Davies memorial night I wonder how many more musos are going to organise memorial or tribute nights. I seem to remember doing a Junior Wells one, for a start. I’m reminded of this because I recently received some promotional flyers for the Chicago Blues Festival from June 11th to 13th, which this year celebrates the centenary of Howlin’ Wolf, whose birthday was apparently on June 10th. Also mentioned in the flyer are Little Walter’s birthday, on May 1st and Robert Johnson’s birthday or what would have been his 99th birthday on May 8th. I’ve no doubt we shall be seeing more celebrations of these dates over here next year. Personally, I’ve given up celebrating my birthday, you‘ll all be pleased to know. Continue reading →

I keep getting reminded that I haven’t entered anything here lately, so I’d better get my finger out. I went down to the Oval in East Croydon for the annual Muddy Waters remembrance gig and did a couple or three numbers with Chris Youlden on vocals along with the house band. Apparently I also got up for the finale but I have no recollection of that. I am assured by Gigi that that was so, but whilst I gradually recovered some of the memory of how we got home, the finale still eludes my hardly overworked brain. Continue reading →