It's been far too long since I saw any of the shows that are part of the annual January Blues Festival, if they are anywhere near as great as this packed Monday night show was, then I have seriously been missing out, this was a great three band rhythm & blues bill.
I arrived in time to see new young blues woman Lucca Mae, who for this show was playing solo that put her at a disadvantage, never the less from her opening song Your Smile it was clear she has a great voice and is a more than decent guitarist, who has a way with heartbreakers. When I Step Off That Train was all about that moment when you've had enough and have to walk away from a relationship, no matter how much your sparkly dress may have dazzled, you've been heartbroken again.
The Truth Is kept the pattern only this time it was Lucca walking away rather than being dumped, with her minimal guitar adornment adding some pathos to the situation she was describing. Travel On is her delivering the message that it's time for you to be on your merry way, she's ready for new adventures, by this point in her set I was hoping that she might have at least one Blues song about being downtrodden in some way and not just a set of heartbreakers, sadly Is It Selfish wasn't about billionaires taking everything, but about deciding the grass is going to be greener with a new lover so you have to go.
The Real Thing was a sign that finally Lucca might have found real love, here's hoping, before she closed with Wasted about both being wasted and wasting the opportunity to be the lover she deserves, while she went all James Whittaker with a whistling solo. Her debut album is out in April when she will be playing with her full 9-piece band who I'm sure will fill her sound out, so she doesn't sound so lonely.
While Snowboy was entertaining us on the wheels of steel before Laura B. And Her band came on, I was musing with a friend as to what the B stood for, my guess was bonecrusher being a suitable blues name, but after seeing her 8-piece band perform I think it would simply be Brilliant. From the moment they opened with A Little Bit Of Love and the first guitar solo was unleashed, it was clear they are an amazingly tight old school Rhythm and Blues band, that don't half swing, the energy coming from the stage was brilliant, I wish I knew who the lead guitarist was, as I'm sure I've seen him before, what he played on Gambling Man was sensational and it dovetailed with Steve Crofts boogie woogie piano brilliantly.
Laura then updated Clara Smith's Don't Advertize Your man into About Your Man a cautionary tale of how you might lose him to a rival, Laura really got her horn section to emphasize her lyrics perfectly. The first cover of the set was her take on Bo Diddley's Gonna Find Me A Good Man and how can he resist a voice like Laura's, or the gold mules she was strutting about the stage on. You Got me Working Hard For You was full of the hard scrabble of being worked to death and wanting to have a little fun, while that guitar blazed away and the piano almost went the full Albert Ammons.
Laura then introduced Barbara Lynn's classic You'll Lose A Good Thing by pointing out she was only 19 when she wrote this heartbroken classic, that Laura B brought a certain maturity and generous spirit too, Love And Treat You Right swung like they were at the wildest fish fry they could find to play at, before they closed with the brilliant Too Tired that I think was the Albert Collins classic, this had a great guitar solo that thankfully wasn't Gary Moore widdly, the horn section really didn't sound tired at all. It may only be January, but I think Laura B And Her band are good contenders for best support band of 2026, they are highly recommended to be seen live.
I have now been seeing James Hunter live every once in a few years for 40 years now, since the sweat soaked Howling Wilf & The Veejays days at Dingwalls and the Klub Foot, through to the country blues and a show with hay bales on stage, now onto playing with the James Hunter Six, promoting his new album Off The Fence (album review to follow). They opened with Gun Shy from Off The Fence and sounded great, almost fuller than the album version, Till I Hear It From You was the heartbroken downtrodden blues song it's title suggests, yet James guitar part had plenty of joy in it. Baby Hold On was a fun song with James showing some of his moves, playing on one leg and sliding across the stage.
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Make Everything Alright like those Saxes driving this downhearted blues on brilliantly. They slowed things down for Let Me Out Of This Love with James begging to be dumped and let loose on the world once more. A Sure Thing is when you have Myles Weeks double bass playing a line as great as this, just in the Nick Of Time my notes about why this song was special are unreadable sadly. James then introduced there cover of the 5 Royales classic Baby Don't Do It that had plenty of sass and some great moves from James who was clearly enjoying himself.
Only A Fool was the first song of the set without the horn section, played slow and careful, for Two Birds One Stone the opening song on Off The Fence, introduced live as being track one side two of the live set and featuring one of the sax players on woodblock, the saxes were back at full power on Okey Dokey Stomp with James re-working the Clarence Gatemouth Brown standard, adding some great dance moves and jumps helping to make sure most of the audience were smiling. Brother Or Other was dedicated to James Brown and Andrew Kingslow got properly funky on the organ half of his double keyboard set up that had lots of people dancing.
Here And Now was a perfect slice of blue-eyed southern soul. James introduced Don't Do Me No Favours as an oldie and most of the audience sang along with him to one of his hits. James then gave us the full advert for the new album by way of an intro to the albums title song Off The Fence that had added groove live, along with a few wry smiles from James. He then took off his guitar for Ain't That A Trip that didn't feature the albums guest vocalist Van Morrison but was still full of passion for all the things that James considers to be A Trip and there are a good few of them.
When James tried to put his guitar back on the strap broke, it needed some expert attention from Myles Weeks, before James begged and pleaded on Believe Me Baby she needs to realize he really does need to be on tour once more, while you need to see him play live. The noise the audience made at the end of the song and set was all the proof he needed.
To start the encore James came back on with Lucca Mae and Myles Weeks for a trio version of Carina with James and Lucca swapping verses, this showed what Lucca could do and went down well. The full band came back for Don't Wait Too Long and played it at a cracking pace before they closed the show with Talk About My Love that featured an astonishing stand-up guitar solo from James and all sorts of other moves, ensuring that I still have never seen him play anything other than a great show live.
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