The birthday bash was very successful with a nice turnout including my daughters, grandsons and great-grandsons all pitching.  The band of Mel, Alan, Steve and Brian delivered the goods and we were entertained with an interval set from Michelle Buckingham.This was just the beginning, and she was followed by Bonny and Carmen on vocals, Peter and T-bone on guitars, Phil on sax, plus Eddie, on harp and vocals, then Big Joe, with Brian and Laurie, doing their own little Bob’s Goodtime Blues revival set. A big thank you to everyone.

Chris Youlden was unable to make it because of illness. He has been through the mill this year, almost dying in hospital around Christmas last  from pneumonia complications, then having to have loads of fluid pumped from his lungs. This was followed by some deterioration in his bone structure around the legs. This has been dealt with now but will take some three months or so to heal. When I phoned he was having his regular visit from a nurse doing his leg ulcer dressing. I look forward to his improvement and a get-stogether for a beer and a proper catch up.

The line-up for the birthday bash on Saturday 30th September will be  Alan Vincent on guitar, Steve Taylor on keyboards, Brian Diprose on bass and Mel Wright on drums with yours truly on vocals and harmonica. There are also a few guests coming along to augment the chaos, so it should be a fun night as long as some upstart doesn’t play Happy Birthday. The band start at eight and of course it’s free entry and open to all.

The gig is at The Maxilla Social Club, 2 Maxilla Walk, London W10 6NQ. A number 7 Bus will drop you in St Mark’s Road or a number 295 or 316 stops in Bramley Road just up from Latimer Road Station, which is, of course, closed, as are all the stations between Hammersmith and Baker Street that weekend, thank you London Underground.

The gig at THe Spice of LIfe for tales From The woods event for the Ray Dexter cancer organisation produced a gret line-up of musicians and the house band were cooking Jon T-Bone Taylor and I did our bit to get things underway and the evening a great occasion. Long may such gigs continue.

My next band gig will be at St Harmonica’s Blues Club which has a great reputation of putting on the blues.The Band is Alan Vincent, guitar, Steve Taylor Bass, Mel Wright Drums and myself. It’s good to have Mel back on board after his first course of treatment, and I am certainly looking forward to it. I’ve had some really bad asthma going on but it seems to have eased up again for now. Can’t wait

The new years eve gig at the Union, which was a last minute dep for Eddie Gee’s band, started as a trio, but became a quartet on the night and when George sat in on sax for a few numbers, a quintet. It went down really well and made a fitting end to the old year because, despite the loss of so many influential musicians worldwide, the music goes on.

The Union is now closed for a while for refurbishing but is a contender for Camra pub of the year competition. Let’s hope it wins. The problem now is where to go until it opens.. It’s obviously not the only pub I use but it is handy because it’s close to home. The obvious replacement would appear to be the Squirrel but as they no longer have ales, having sealed off the old bitter taps, and have given up on music, there is little incentive. I guess the alternatives are The Metropolitan or Angie’s as they are both close by. I still use the Castle and Finch’s on the Bello of course, but they are further afield. I was in Finch’s just the other day and surprise ,surprise, it’s that time of year again. The barman warned me that the price had gone up/ I informed him that I was used to that and when I first started drinking there in 1963, the prices were much lower, though not that cheap at the time, either.

One of the gigs I did at the Squirrel was for the then manager Laura George and her father Ian had been visiting and really liked the band. As a result, Laura decided to give him a surprise Party for his sixtieth birthday and booked the band. This was at the Six Bells in St Albans, an old haunt of mine back in the late fifties. The band were myself, Alan Vincent, Steve Taylor and Mel Wright and it was really enjoyable and Laura did her dad proud with a great turnout of Ian’s friends and family. Now, back to the present, I have no gigs and life is much as usual. To rub salt into the wound, Mel Wright reminded me that we first started playing together fifty years ago. Is someone trying to tell me something?