Ben Poole - Trio - Live '19

The journey towards maturity of Ben Poole continues.  I’d like to be able to report that with Trio – Live ’19 he has at last emerged definitively into the sunlit uplands, but that would be pushing it.  However in partnership with drummer Wayne Proctor and bassist Steve Amadeo – and you’d better believe that’s pretty good hired help – he does bank some worthwhile credit with this live album, sharp looking cover and all.

After warming up with a couple of stolid numbers that could’ve done with a few more beats per minute, the rubber really hits the road courtesy of Jude Cole’s 80s hit ‘Start The Car’, a catchy affair which has plenty of zip as Proctor knocks out a snappy groove and Poole delivers some fizzing guitar licks.

Watch you don't fall there, Ben!

Pic by Robert Sutton

But they really get cracking in the middle of the set, kicking off with ‘The Question Why’, which opens in slick, soulful fashion, with a snazzy bass line from Amadeo, before its appealing melody kicks in.  There’s sparky guitar work from Poole, and as he gets into a second solo Proctor’s drums propel matters with a sense of urgency.  ‘Further On Down The Line’ is a well-constructed tune that throbs along nicely with Proctor playing just behind the beat and Poole piquing interest with a squelchy, fuzzy guitar tone.  Then ‘Don’t Cry For Me’ makes a bid for pièce de resistance status, a slowie that makes effective use of Poole’s vulnerable, quavery vocal.  It’s a good tune, and Poole deploys an intriguingly wobbly guitar tone on an excellent, pinpoint guitar solo before shifting gear satisfyingly, not going overboard and lent top drawer underpinning by Proctor and Amadeo.

I’m not sure they ever reclaim those heights, though ‘Lying To Me’ does maintain the momentum, with tough, slightly discordant riffing and a nifty, tumble-turning bridge ahead of a brief solo.  ‘I Think I Love You Too Much’ is melodically slight, but benefits from sprightly opening guitar licks over a rock solid groove featuring rich, bubbling bass, and an assertive second guitar solo.  On ‘Found Out The Hard Way’ Poole’s light voice never manages to communicate real emotional depth, sounding more like a teenager with a petted lip than a grown man in a dark place.  But the middle eight gives it a lift, and Poole delivers an impressive, piercing solo improvising around the melody.  Then they regroup more convincingly with the offbeat rhythm and punchy riff of ‘Stay At Mine’, exploring funkier terrain that would have benefited from a more resounding ‘let it rip’ conclusion.

Ben Poole - same to you mate!

Pic by Gernot Mangold

But sometimes when Poole spreads himself, as he likes to do, more can turn out to be less.  His brittle-toned solo guitar intro to ‘Have You Ever Loved A Woman’ rambles on for a good four and a half minutes, taking in the first verse, before Proctor and Amadeo arrive on the scene, and more minutes go by before it rouses itself to something wirier and emphatic.  ‘Anytime You Need Me’ is better, setting off on a strutting beat and resonant riff, with a spiky little solo and some spitfire vocals, before they take it down for Amadeo to deliver a restrained and arresting, guttural-toned bass showcase. But boy do they take an age to climb out of that to a sinewy crescendo - throwing a few sharp combinations to end the round, in boxing parlance, would have more impact.

The closing ‘Time Might Never Come’ is overlong too at fifteen minutes plus, but I’ll given them the benefit of the doubt this time.  Slow and reflective, it aspires to a John Mayer-like intensity at times, as an aching, dramatic solo builds to passages of scrabbling fretwork then strung-out notes, before the vocals re-enter to the accompaniment of ringing chords.  Quite why they then choose to tack on a meandering coda is beyond me, though.

Listening to Live – Trio ’19, I still think Ben Poole has work to do to build a stronger repertoire of songs, with a definitive voice, that will produce a real breakthrough.  That breakthrough may have eluded him here, but there are enough positives to suggest that if he keeps working at his craft, keeps polishing, then one fine morning he may find he’s arrived.

Trio - Live '19 is released on 31 January.  Ben Poole starts his British tour the same night - look here for details of all dates.

Ana Popovic - Oran Mor, Glasgow, 8 May 2019

It’s a damp and miserable evening in Glasgow – or dreich, as we say here in Scotland.  But Ana Popovic certainly succeeds in raising the temperature in Oran Mor with her brand of funky rocking blues.  After a brief, driving soul curtain-raiser from the rest of her band, complete with squealing horns, the lady makes her entrance and proceeds to light the fuse by leading them in a blistering instrumental.

That sets the tone for an opening barrage of take-no-prisoners funkadelicness from a band that manages to be at once tight as a drum and loose as a goose, featuring some jaw dropping guitar

Serbian siren singes fretboard alert

from their boss.  Often, if I were to say that a guitarist is capable of unleashing a torrent of notes, it wouldn’t necessarily be a  compliment.  But it has to be said that in the hands of Ana Popovic it’s done with eye-popping intent.

They blast through chunks of funk like ‘Can You Stand The Heat’ and ‘Object Of Obsession’ with plenty of variation, from a brief bass showcase over jazzy piano chords, to Ms P exploring the apron of the stage for a succession of zinging solos, to a guitar and keys duel.  Throughout all this Popovic tends to sport a look of total self-assurance, mistress of all she surveys.  And no wonder.

It’s all a bit relentless mind you, not helped by the sound being just a bit too in-yer-face.  I’m rarely one to complain about volume, but there’s a tendency for things to sound overly shrill until later in the set.

Whatever, it’s a relief to get a breather when they downshift into ‘Long Road Down’ a more relaxed tale of western migration – albeit with some brisk wah-wah riffing – on which the horns get their groove on before another blinding solo from Popovic. She then cools things off further with a cover of Tom Waits’ ‘New Coat Of Paint’, bringing a N’Awlins horn vibe together with jazzy piano runs.  Both the trumpet and sax player get solo turns, while Popovic totally nails Waits’ lazy vocal phrasing.  ‘Johnny Ray’ completes a triplet of more

Aaaand - breathe . . . .

laid back tunes, all smoky downbeat jazziness, and featuring a fluttering, left-hand-only, pin-drop quiet guitar passage of extraordinary control.

Then she ups the funk ante again with ‘If Tomorrow Was Today’ to shake everyone’s butts back into motion, before launching into the joint-jumping blues of ‘How’d You Learn To Shake It Like That’, with the classic lines “Your daddy was a preacher, your mama was an alley cat”, and a strafing slide solo to boot.

‘Unconditional’ starts off in easy-going mode before developing a breakneck call and response passage for guitar and keys, while ‘Summer Rain’ features a full-on eyeballs-out solo – not so much a sun shower as a tropical downpour.

You’d scarcely think the woman has a new album to flog, given that she leaves it for over an hour before she slots in the loose-limbed title track from Like It On Top, followed by the bump’n’grind of ‘Brand New Man’.  But if those provide another pause for breath, it’s only in readiness for ‘Show You How Strong You Are’, which closes the show with showcases for band members all round before they wallop into a ‘Going Down’ riff that ultimately melds into a rip-roaring ‘Crosstown Traffic’, replete with another dazzling firework display of lead guitar.

After that the brief, sun-kissed and swinging ‘Lasting Kind Of Love’, from the new album, is something of an anti-climax.  Or maybe it’s just a final exhalation to let the crowd recover as they head out the door. I certainly needed a lie down – a wow performance to be sure, but a

bit more blues to leaven all the funkification, and the foot off the pedal a bit more, would create more light, shade, and balance.  As a first encounter with the Ana Popovic live experience though, this was an eye-opener and then some.

Ben Poole - "Where'd I drop my pick?"

What to say of support act Ben Poole, preceding that force of nature?  I’ve liked Poole since picking up his Live At The Royal Albert Hall album a few years, but this brief curate’s egg of a set left me feeling that he’s still not fulfilling his potential. He produces a solid opening with the chunky chords and beefy rhythm of ‘Take It No More’ – you’d better bet you’ll get a meaty groove with Wayne Proctor on drums.  ‘Start The Car’ is a funky strut to get toes tapping, on which Poole produces an interesting flight-of-the-bumblebee segment in an otherwise overlong solo.

‘Don’t Cry For Me’ is a moody slowie with the kind of soulfulness that suits his voice, and the restrained grooving passage of his solo displays feeling, though for me the big and dirty uptempo section that follows is less interesting.  But the closing ‘Anytime You Need Me’, the title track of his latest album, certainly fits the bill.  With its brassy riff, punchy vocal delivery that’s one of his strengths, interesting shifts in tempo and volume, and a scrabbling solo over bubbling bass runs from Beau Barnard while Proctor holds it all together, it's worthy of its big finish.  Others may disagree, but I think a bit more discipline in his soloing would serve Poole well, allowing him to focus more on his undoubted ability to deliver a tune.

The Man At The Back, Part 2 - Blues Enthused chats with King King drummer Wayne Proctor

In addition to being the 'Man At The Back’ with King King, Wayne Proctor is, of course, a highly regarded backroom boy, as a producer under his House Of Tone banner. His latest output on that front is Ben Poole’s forthcoming album Anytime You Need Me, which I reckon represents a big step forward for Poole in several respects – and features a great drum sound from Proctor into the bargain.  So how did he and Poole set about bringing the new album into being?

“Well, for his last album Time Has Come, Alan Robinson, King King and Ben’s manager, kind of picked the songs. I think he felt at the time that Ben - as much as he had a couple of

"You lookin' at me?"

Pic by Rob Blackham

real corkers of songs, like ‘The Time Might Never Come’, which is a stunning tune, and he had a couple of other little ideas - wasn’t yet in the place to write a whole record, with the kind of lyrical and melodic content needed to make a great record.”

As Proctor points out, this is hardly unheard of. Whether they’re newcomers or big stars, artists have long taken advantage of outside help to line up suitable material. Labels like Motown and Stax relied heavily on writing teams, Aerosmith made a mint out of stuff provided by Diane Warren when their own well was drying up, and Bonnie Raitt continues to pepper her albums with covers in addition to originals. So for Time Has Come, Proctor recalls, they selected material from a ‘long list’ of about 25 songs.

“And most of it was a singer-songwriter style in a bluesy manner,” he says. “So it ended up being quite light. Vocally Ben didn’t really have the grit then. But he was also singing other people’s songs, so him singing them a bit softer was kind of intentional to make it more emotional, in a kind of John Mayer way. So after that record, Ben and I chatted, and when Alan Nimmo had the little mishap with his voice last year I said to Ben, ‘Look, do you fancy us writing an album together? Writing a heavier album, writing songs that are written to your strengths, picking keys that suit you, writing with attitude, and trying to put something together that is more for you, that sounds like you on 100%?’  And Ben was absolutely up for it.

“So then Steve Wright [Proctor’s House Of Tone production compadre], Ben and I wrote ‘Take It No More’ and ‘Further On Down The Line’.  We did it over three days – we wrote the lyrics, melodies and arrangements. We had no idea what the chemistry would be.  We just knew we all got on.  But we came up with these two songs, and we were like, ‘These are really good – in fact they’re great.’  They were just demos – the drums were done out in Steve’s house, and it was all done quite quickly, but it had a vibe, it definitely had a vibe, and we were excited about them.  So we just carried on going.”

Between them they sifted whatever ideas were kicking around for things that caught the ear.

“And then we’d just work and work and work – a load of gestating the idea, and developing it, and ‘Let’s try it with this kind of feel, or this tempo, or this key’.  And then lyrically we all just sat down and said, what atmosphere did we think this song was about?  So something like ‘Take It No More’ had a lot of attitude in it, and we wanted it to be like where you’re pointing your finger at someone, having a go.  And ‘Anytime You Need Me’ should have this positive thing about it - I was going through something at the time, so I was like, ‘Can we do a song about this?  About always being there for someone, and not abandoning them.’”

As Ben Poole himself has observed, they spent six months writing and demoing material, off and on.

“And eventually we had a whole record,” says Proctor. “We did it without telling anybody we were doing it.  I literally just handed the album into Alan Robinson and said ‘Look, here you go. If you want to put it out on Manhaton Records, great, If not, I’ll shop it to somebody else.’  It was like, this is our album, we’ve done it on our terms. We’ve done it without any interference getting in the way of the creativity, without being told you’ve got to mix it this way, or you’ve got to use these musicians, or you can’t play the drums on it. I didn’t want to hear any of that. I just wanted to make the artist I was working with sound the best I could make him sound.  And if that meant us writing some songs together because we had a good chemistry, then perfect! Ben was more than happy to do that. At times the three of us were just sitting there with blank expressions on our faces, not knowing where to go, and then all of a sudden one of us would shout, ‘That’s it, I’ve got it. I’ve got the lyric, I’ve got the key to the gateway that lets us into the next line.’  And slowly but surely the song would present itself.”

Earlier in our conversation, Proctor had referred to King King’s albums emerging organically, as if from a lump of clay.  I recall the sculptor’s line about the big block of marble, that the statue is in there somewhere, it’s just a question of finding it.

“Exactly. You’ve just got to chip away at it and be really honest with yourself. Is it as good as you can make it?  Anyone I ever produce, I say to them, please just be honest with yourselves. If this is the best you can do, then fair enough. But I’m sure when you ask yourself, this is you on a six out of ten.  And pretty much everyone I’ve worked with then says, ‘Yeah, I can do better.’  ‘Well, why have you played this to me then?

“Although I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that, to be honest,” he laughs.  “You’re trying to light a fire up their ass, so that they go, ‘Yeah, yeah. I can do better.’  And nine times out of ten it works – and Ben absolutely rose to the challenge in every way shape and form for me on Anytime You Need Me.  I love it – I’m so proud of him and the album we’ve made.”

Part of the challenge is also about positioning things correctly though, I suggest.  Poole’s Live At The Royal Albert Hall album showed that he has a good voice – not especially bluesy, but soulful in his own way, with musicality.  But as Proctor noted, this didn’t really come over on Time Has Come.  It seems to me though, that some of the newer songs are in lower keys that enable him to come across more strongly.  Or is that just my imagination?

“No, that’s exactly right,” says Proctor. “All the songs were written with his voice in mind, in

Non-Diet Ben Poole gets potent

terms of where does it sound good?  Where do you sound the most meaningful?  Where can you get the grit into your voice?  But I know, even at the recording stage, we still dropped the keys of ‘Take It No More’, ‘Further On Down The Line’, and ‘Dirty Laundry’, because Ben couldn’t get to the high notes in a manner that we felt was ballsy and convincing.  And one thing that’s become apparent is that with ‘Dirty Laundry' in particular he just owned it, he just sang it great. I remember when he did those first few verses, he literally did two or three takes of each verse, and it was like, ‘Dude – do you wanna come and listen to how good your voice your sounds here?’

One aspect of Poole’s singing that I like, and which ‘Dirty Laundry’ shows off, is his diction, his ability to really pop consonants out very clearly, as in the line about the ‘bubble-headed bleach blonde’.

“Well, there are two elements to this thing with the diction. If you go back to the Albert Hall live CD, there’s a studio song on there called ‘Starting All Over Again’ that we worked on together. And one of the things that Alan Robinson had said to me was that we’ve got to work on his diction, ‘cause I can’t work out what he’s saying.  So it’s always been something that we’ve been very conscious of.  But also, writing melodies and picking lyrics that have a lot of syllables and a lot of percussive sounds in them. I remember Rob Temperton when he was writing for Michael Jackson, saying that he purposely wrote melodies, and words, that had a lot of percussive sounds, to allow Michael Jackson to really spit it out, and so it had a lot of rhythm to it, and a lot of attack.  So one of the things we did with the lyric writing on this album was to really try and find things that complemented Ben’s natural ability to spit a lyric out. So there are all those elements in there that are percussive and strong, and it not only makes his voice sound stronger, but it makes the lyrics sound clearer, and puts the lyric on the top of the music a lot easier.”

The difference is marked, in my book. Proctor may have produced Time Has Come, but I tell him that by the time I got to the end of the end of that album I was desperate for Poole to man up a bit, vocally.

“Well, on Time Has Come these were songs that weren’t written for him,” he repeats, “and they had a particular atmosphere, and they didn’t sound right being sung aggressively.  We did try it, but it just sounded weird, it didn’t sound like there was context.”

So defaulting to a style that fitted the songs didn’t really bring the best out of him.

“Exactly,” Proctor agrees. “So this time around I said, ‘Well man, we’re writing the songs ourselves, so let’s make every song work for you.’  And luckily it worked out great, and we had a load of fun doing it, and it was at the right time for me to be doing that as well. Me and Steve were already starting to write together, and I think we just knew what he wanted, we just knew that Ben needed to sound more convincing, to sound more aggressive. And I love the results. Honestly, I couldn’t say enough good things about the album, and the experience of making it. 

A blur of motion at the back with King King

“King King is Alan’s baby,” he goes on, “and I love and adore being in that band. But it’s Alan’s baby, and I don’t want to offer lyrics to him, I don’t want to offer chord structures to him and potentially water down our process. It’s not what he wants, he wants us to support him and facilitate the sound of the songs in his head - Alan always has a very strong vision for King King, which is great and definitely works. So, when this opportunity came up to co-write the lyrics, melodies and generally chord structures rather than just arrangements, I said ‘Great, let’s do it!’  It was just another asset to the House Of Tone arsenal of tools, another string to the bow and a lot of fun to do! Ben and I had a conversation the other day about the next album, and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we know exactly where we want to go next time around!’

I make the observation that Don Henley’s recording of ‘Dirty Laundry’ featured Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro from Toto, so it gave Proctor the chance to emulate one of his inspirations, as he acknowledges. For me, it’s also symptomatic of Anytime You Need Me being something of a crossover album into AOR territory, in a good way, though tracks like ‘Don’t Cry For Me’ and ‘Found Out The Hard Way’ still give Poole room to breathe musically, and be expansive. Was that something Proctor had in mind?

“I just think that’s who he is, in all honesty,” he says. “He wants to be able to play the guitar, he wants to play cool, get-behind-it kind of riffs, so he can really make them mean something, and obviously he wants to solo as well. But it’s not about ironing all that stuff out, it’s about giving him a vehicle where he can be meaningful with what he’s playing, and one that you can transfer to a live setting.  And Ben likes mainstream music, you know?  That’s it, full stop.  So why shouldn’t that be incorporated into his style?  But he wants to do it in a non-emaciated way. You don’t want it to feel like it’s Diet Ben, because it’s a bit poppy, or it’s a bit mainstream in any way, it still needs to feel like it’s potent, and it’s got some attitude and meaning to it.”

At which point the self-confessed ‘studio rat’ has to get back to work knob-twiddling at Steve Wright’s Y Dream Studios on another project, this time for a forthcoming album tribute album to Willie Dixon by Ian Parker.

Drummers have a bit of a reputation – Moon the Loon, John Bonham the wild man, Phil Rudd and his recent, er, misadventures.  Hell, Howlin’ Wolf’s drummer Sam Lay even managed to shoot one of his knackers off due to carrying a loaded gun in his trouser pocket while playing. Wayne Proctor doesn’t fit the stereotype. Instead he’s a guy who’s passionate about the creative process, and evidently a detail freak with very high quality standards. But hey, he got through our discussion of the production process without sharing his extensive knowledge of microphones, for which I’m truly grateful!

You can find Part 1 of the Wayne Proctor interview here.

Ben Poole's new album Anytime You Need Me is released by Manhaton Records on 14 September.

Ben Poole's European and UK tour dates can be found here.

Ben Poole - Anytime You Need Me

Well, I’m impressed.

Reviewing Ben Poole’s previous album Time Has Come back in 2016 for The Blues Magazine, I suggested that while it had strong points, some of the songs were slight, the boyishness of his voice could become wearing, and the time had come for him to find more of his dark side.  So it’s encouraging to find that on Anytime You Need Me he’s taken a big step towards addressing those issues.

Ben Poole - the boy done good

A tough, choppy guitar riff sets the tone on the opening title track, and as the song progresses Poole’s voice leaves behind his more winsome tendencies and gets into grittier territory, which he underlines with a couple of satisfying guitar solos, the first brief but edgy, and the second squealing.  And already, it has to be noted, the sound delivered by producer Wayne Proctor and his House Of Tone buddies is excellent, especially in relation to Proctor’s drums.

Poole uses fuzzed up guitar tones to good effect on several tracks, kicking off with the interesting riff on ‘Take It No More’.  It’s followed up mid-album by ‘Further On Down The Line’, on which squelchy guitar riffery crunches along over a twitching rhythm and a deep bass groove from Beau Barnard. And then on ‘Let Me Be’, the fuzzy guitar gradually pulls Barnard’s resonant bass foundation to the fore, and along with a few filigrees in the arrangement enlivens what might otherwise be a somewhat tame song.

At the centre of the album all concerned do a sterling job on a cover of Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’. Poole is again in a key that allows him to produce a bit more dig vocally, and he adds a suitably dirty guitar sound on his solo.  It’s a song with plenty of punch all round, and which could point the way for Poole in the future, with a caustic lyric that goes beyond the personal and engages with the wider world.  They follow that up nicely with Jude Cole’s 80s hit ‘Start The Car’, getting funky with throbbing bass, organ fills from Ross Stanley, guitar licks flickering between the lines of the second verse to add variety, and ultimately a stinging, wah-wah-fied solo from Poole.

‘You Could Say’ is a confection with a lot going for it, in the form of a sweetly jangling riff that recalls Stevie Nimmo’s ‘Lovin’ Might Do Us Good’, some cleverly shuffling rhythms from Proctor, and a catchy pop melody.  But it does find Poole back reverting to lightweight vocal mode, and it’s as well that he thickens it by adding his own harmonies.

He comes up trumps with a couple of ballads though, with ‘Found Out The Hard Way’ and ‘Don’t Cry For Me’ representing twin highlights.  The former is patient and expansive, with a pleasing melody and subtle guitar work. In fact it’s subtle all round, in a very Aynsley Lister-ish way, and Poole serves up a rousing solo on the outro. The latter, penned by Proctor’s compadre Steve Wright, is a soulful slowie of beguiling simplicity, and becomes a platform for Poole to confirm the kind of guitar playing promise that he showed on his Live At The Albert Hall live album.  Giving Poole the room to breathe on these tracks proves well worth it.

The album closes with ‘Holding On’, which with its rumbling, ominous intro aspires to something more epic. It would benefit from Poole offering a stronger, more emphatic vocal, but it does go through the gears a bit halfway through, and develops an impressive head of steam as a finale.

Ben Poole may not have struck gold with Anytime You Need Me, but it is a big stride forward from him, in terms of songwriting, vocals, and all round performance.  It speaks of lots of hard work with his co-writers Wayne Proctor and Steve Wright, and shows that he does have the capability to fulfil the potential shown on his early live album.  The boy done manned up a bit, and it suits him.

Anytime You Need Me is released on Manhaton Records on 14 September.
King King drummer Wayne Proctor talks about producing Anytime You Need Me here.

Stevie Nimmo and Ben Poole - Oran Mor, Glasgow, 6 May 2016

Don’t you just love it when a gig really comes together, and you find yourself having a damn good time?

In a recent interview Stevie Nimmo observed that he no longer gave a shit about conforming with any music industry expectations.  And why the hell should he, when he and his band deliver performances like this?

Towards the end of this set they give an outing to ‘The Storm’, a song by the late Glasgow

Stevie Nimmo - walking on the moon

legend Big George Watt, and Nimmo shows just what he’s made of on guitar.  There’s a mountainous, howling solo early on, but then there are subtle shifts in mood before he delivers another stunning solo, shimmering and then piercing, and it feels like he takes it all the way to the moon before bringing it back.

And that’s just one highlight among many tonight.  On the Allman Brothers song, ‘Gambler’s Roll’, which to be honest I found one of the less interesting moments on his new album Sky Won’t Fall, Nimmo demonstrates that he’s on top form vocally too.  More than that, the contributions of Mat Beable on bass and Craig Bacon on drums show that the Stevie Nimmo Trio are more than just a group, they’re a team.

It was like this from the kick-off, with the urgent ‘Roll The Dice Again’, and then the gutsy, fuck-off-defiant ‘Still Hungry’, which features great bass from Beable.

‘Running On Back To You’ – “as bluesy as I get nowadays”, says Nimmo – is based on a delightful guitar lick with a teasing final upstroke, and is delivered with real feeling.  Meanwhile on ‘Change’ they fall into an effortless groove, swinging with ease – you can easily imagine some female backing vocals adding to its vibe.

On a cover of Storyville’s ‘Good Day For The Blues’ they demonstrate that they can also do a more laid back, Southern feel, but with set closer ‘Lovin’ Might Do Us Good’ they really hit the bullseye.  It’s a Bacardi Breezer of a song - light and funky and succeeding in getting a good few asses shook.

Ben Poole - finger picking good

They come back on with co-headliner Ben Poole, and the estimable Steve Watts on keys, to shake the foundations with a fearsome rendition of Jeff Beck’s ‘Going Down’, and Nimmo and Poole have great fun cranking out the riff while Watts showcases on organ.

It’s a great ending to the night, and one that gives Poole another share of the spotlight after his satisfying set earlier in the evening.  The sexy ‘Let’s Go Upstairs’ is a strong opener, and Poole’s qualities are underlined on ‘Love Nobody No More’, a strong piece of songwriting done justice by his quavery, soulful vocal, finger-picking guitar, and nice harmonies.  Accompanied by the B&B rhythm section of Beable and Bacon, and with Watts on keyboards, the playing is rock solid.

‘Longing For A Woman’, with its ‘Norwegian Wood’-like descending bass line, is the inspiration for a fierce Telecaster solo, laden with tension.  In contrast ‘Lying To Me’ is chunky and funky, with Bradley Wiggins lookalike Watts coming over all Stax-like, and a syncopated feel to the middle section.

Poole and Nimmo take it to the limit

But if these songs demonstrate Poole’s potential, there are times when he could do with some more discipline.  He opens the Freddie King classic ‘Have You Ever Loved A Woman’ with an overlong solo guitar and vocal intro, which is a pity, because once the band kick in things get back on course.  Beable and Bacon are rock steady, Poole finds a pleasingly pinging, twanging guitar tone to complement his husky vocals, and Watts’ organ gives the whole thing balance.

He’s at it again on the Gary Moore-inspired ‘Time Might Never Come’.  The song has a yearning chorus and a neat resolving guitar chord to the riff, but the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts.  Poole gets into a gutsy solo, full of deep and rich tones, but takes far too long to get to the heart of it, and then lapses into a spell of vacuous shredding before getting back on track.

No matter.  The Brighton boy has the bones of a great, soulful sound, and he can write a good song.  He reminds me of Aynsley Lister, but has yet to acquire Lister’s poise and balance.  Touring with Stevie Nimmo will hopefully be an effective learning experience for him.