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.
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 |
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 |
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.
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