It’s been six months since Devizes-based young blues crooner JP Oldfield released his poignant kazoo-blowing debut EP Bouffon. He’s made numerous appearances across the circuit since and created an impressive following. Today sees him on the next leg of his musical journey, a brand new single aptly titled No Rest…..
If the kazoo created a unique identity for Josh, quirking up otherwise darker themes than the novelty songs you’d except the instrument to be found in, this idiosyncratic move may have caused some criticism from traditionalists who simply didn’t get it. Not me, inherent in the belief rules are made to be broken, I’m of the reckoning JP Oldfield is a contemporary rarity, a misunderstood genius finding his feet. A dedicated axemen with an axe to grind, and a singer-songwriter unafraid to explore and expose every detail of the melancholic mind maze in the encapsulating way blues legends did before him.
With this in tow, I’d argue the jukejoint authentic sound created with his haunting grizzly vocal tones, that steel guitar and beaten up suitcase pedal-drum is Marmite. Love it or hate it, JP forged an imitable style, ranging from Cash to Tom Waits and Nick Cave in comparison. I’d draw any critic’s attention to a track like Last Orders, a heart-wrenchingly honest tune which takes on the drunkard’s misery of a relationship break-up in true mellowed delta blues fashion, without kazoo. But hey, now we’ve got No Rest, a level up certainly in production and indicative of all the greatness he’s already achieved; it rocks.
There’s the sombre spiritual blues theme we’ve come to expect, but it’s a foot-stomping pace with a killer rolling riff, kazoo-less yet a perfect balance of everything else JP throws at his music. It’s deliberately raw, perfectly hard-hitting and undoubtedly JP on the best form we’ve ever seen.
In our interview a month short of a year ago, Josh gave me the impression he was something of a perfectionist. A lot of work has gone into this full bodied five minute marvel, and it shows, in its crisp sound, this composition of elements making said perfect balance, and also a enlightening video accompanying it, by Jamie R Hawkins’ Side Owl Productions. This cones out around 6pm tonight, I’ll add the link to it here, so return after your potato waffles.
The video has a different narrative from the song, rather ‘the story of the song;’ a fascinating showcase of JP’s session at Mooncalf Studios, where Nick Beere engineers the kind of tune which we might suggest JP’s feet have been found. We look forward to hearing the other songs from this session in good time, but for now this is plenty to indicate this Devizes bluesman is heading in the right direction. But Nick brought out the best in musicians while I was still doodling boobs on my school rough book!
He’s JP Oldfield, I’m just old, but I know what I like. I could dance barefoot in a barn grasping a bottle of bourbon to this, and when it gets to that irresistible bridge I’ll procrastinate my repent, letting my sins roam free for a day; though I haven’t drawn a boob on a school book for quite some considerable time!
Oh hear ye, for a foretelling I behold. A prog-rock shamen of extensive knowledge and sorcery will enter our sacred vale during the moon to cometh.…
A mysterious lone traveller stands at the Trow Bridge, as steadfast as the mist surrounding him. Behind him, the home he departed, the market Frome across the Somerset border. In front as he strides barefoot across the downs, resides the unsuspecting kind folk of the White Horse. He arrives clasping under his cloak, a magical multi-track looper known as a Boomerang III Phrase Sampler, a gatefold sleeve album of yore in his other hand he holds high above his brimmed kappell, and he hath a celebration to bequeath….
….or he might have a van, I’m not 100% certain! But James Hollingsworth returns to Wiltshire to pay homage to Pink Floyd’s ninth studio album Wish You Were Here, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. With loop pedalboard and other such tech, he bravely attempts it solo, but if any one can, he can.
In our writer Andy’s extolled words of a review long past, when James did similar at the Devizes Southgate on Dark Side of the Moon’s fiftieth birthday, Andy called him a “tour de force, a stunning effort of both musical versatility, but also of concentration. It’s the music he loves, and it really showed.”
Unlike Andy, I’m not of that era, being only two when Wish You Were Here was released, and as a result I’m more critical about prog-rock. Though Floyd are a timeless band, whose lyrics we chanted on the playground, inciting us not to need education or thought-control. And of James I said in a 2022 review, again at the Southgate, “for any music lover from folk to prog-rock, from the era of mellowed Floyd-eske goodness, James Hollingsworth works some magic,” so, I must have loved it!
To make sure, James sent me his latest outpouring, an intense collaboration with keyboardist Steve Griffiths called Lost in the Winds of Time. With tolkienesque charm, swirling soundscapes and whimsical storytelling, Lost in the Winds of Time is a sea shanty rock opera, nine lengthy tracks strong, each flowing beautifully like the whistling winds, into a narrative, mystically.
Though Lost in the Winds of Time might be better comparable to the album Meddle, with its gorgeous circulating psychotropic-inducing effects and riffs which roll over like waves on a calming sea caressing the shore. James’ silky vocals drift across the ether, like Wiltshire’s own Justin Hayward narrating a Victoran fantasy adventure, or Harry Potter Goes to Sea with Gandalf!
It’s an impressive trip, to me, as I’m one who, during the intervening period between undesirable commercialised electronica and the more welcomed acid house, sought the archives for lost psychedelia to suit my blossoming journey into the psyche’s nirvana (I was at art college, it was part of the curriculum!) The older Floyd albums were an inevitable discovery I revelled in, horizontally in a moulding bedroom. Wish You Were Here stood out, for its vivid masterpieces of alienation and mental health, attributing original Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett, and paying their respects to him in such sublime manner reflected by listeners to anyone they once loved and lost.
Not to be confused with a tribute act, James Hollingsworth more simply pays homage to his influences in his own manner, and plans to play some of his compositions alongside. How will he do it? Bet you wish you were here to hear it… (see what I did there? I’ll get my fur-lined Afghan coat!)
He takes his show to Melksham, at the Grapes on Saturday 17th May. At the Southgate in Devizeson bank holiday Monday, the 26th May, which are both free, and as part of the Bath Fringe on Thursday 29th May at The Ring O Bells, ticketed event. Also at The Creative Innovation Centre in Taunton on Friday 23rd May.
Despite summer being a fleeting memory, and time to batten down the hatches for our major events, even if there’s not ‘much’ going on in Devizes at night, there’s always something….
Though tempted by gigs further afield, The Pump in one direction, George Wilding in Pewsey the other, I had had ‘one of those weeks.’ You know the sort, I’m sure; don’t ask if not! It persuaded me towards the self-indulgence of too many ciders; a rare thing for me these days, usually I’m happy to drive to a gig, but adamant I was staying in Devizes to booze, I was stuck with the ‘somethings.’ Thing was, those things turned out really rather good.
If there’s always something happening in Devizes, it’s largely down to two pubs, The Southgate and The Three Crowns. But Saturday night, The Bear Hotel was hosting a soul DJ night of Motown to disco, by long-standing Melksham based DJ, Maurice Menghini, aka Mister M, and his partner on the wheels of steel, The Original PJ, or Patrick, as I was introduced to him as. Maurice has carved a flexible DJ promotional organisation called Real Music Promotions, for all manner of function, with a personal penchant for reggae. He’s been at it for years, and is renowned locally.
My round robin, then, began at the exquisite Bear Hotel’s Ballroom, as rubbing shoulders with Maurice has been long overdue. It’s a matured affair, a blossoming crowd of Devizes disco die-hards gathered, looking for any excuse to dance, and Maurice provided that with the unsurpassed magic of Motown classics, Northern Soul rarities and spanning into later disco discs. They know what buttons to press, supplying lively banter, and request cards on the tables. While it’s a ticketed event, they only weigh in at a fiver, with free live music elsewhere it must be said, a disco is a hard sell by comparison. Nevertheless, variety is the spice of life, all events are valid here, and Maurice and Patrick are ahead of their game; the ballroom is bouncing.
Real Music promised to return for another at the Bear, on New Year’s Eve. Rest of the time you can find this double-trouble DJ duo regularly at Spencer’s Club at Melksham FC. The Sham, huh? Coming over here, guys, blessing us with soul vibes and forcing Devizes folk to shake their tail feathers, whatever next?!
Allowing the disco to simmer on low heat, I slipped off across the Market Place, to the trusty Three Crowns, black my nose there. Hugely popular with Millennials and a few older who think they are, The Three Crowns is bustling as usual. It’s ever-lively, the place to be, they’ve extended their menu and have the knack to attract a variety of the Devizes demographic.
Except, rather than a full band they usually host, more often than not Britpop or classic rock covers, a working combination, the pub hosts dynamic Devizes duo, Funked Up. Also at it for years and locally renowned for it, with a keyboard and saxophone combo the duo deliver the timeless soul-filled pop classics you simply have to dance to, and they deliver them with the gusto equal to a full band. Needless to say, with the drinks flowing, this one will go off.
For the elders, come-as-you are Devizes live music aficionados, The Southgate remains the place to head for, and rightly so. The rare thing of welcoming original music, the authenticity of pub culture of yore, and the general communal atmosphere are its benefits, and we love it for them. Though I confess I preconceived the band by their name, A Smile, Two Bangs and a Legend kinda sounds quirky and loosely thrown together, you know? As if they’re a nice, smiley conformist ensemble, attempting to break the wedding function band market! I should know better than to doubt the Southgate, as on arrival all-macho, healthy and hard rock was pumping out and A Smile, Two Bangs and a Legend were nearing the end of their first half.
The obvious question upon meeting one of those classic rock enthusiasts of the band, was who was the Smile, because they all looked equally red-blooded, who was the bangs, because as a unit they all made a noise, and who was the legend, because if there was one of those professional, ex-famous musician beatniks who occasionally played bass for some rock god and lived off the stories, it could’ve been any one of them! I stood corrected and better informed; the band name derives from a Monty Python quote, though a fan, I’d not heard of before; from the Flying Circus series I believe, trainspotters.
But it wasn’t the origins of the name, rather the expert delivery of rock classics which turned this around. Executions of ZZ Top and AC-DC and all in-between came thick, fast and accomplished. It is precisely what the regulars at the Southgate lap up, a timeless template of prog-rock to the dawn of metal, those hard-hitting powerhouses which time will not allow us to forget. A Smile, Two Bangs and a Legend exceeded my preconceptions with smiles, bangs and were, definitively, legends in their own denims.
As imagining I’m the soul man Sam & Dave sang about, I’m inclined to leave the Gate, safe in the knowledge the band had it under wraps. Next time I see smiles, bangs and legends on the roster it’s a confirmed grand night at the Southgate, but then, in six years I’ve yet to be disappointed. I am, however, curious to see how our Melksham grandmasters are getting on at the Bear ballroom. On arrival things have escalated, the party in full swing is pumping, the Motown classics have progressed to disco ones, and the crowd have had their fill at the bar, and were either shaking their stuff or chatting enthusiastically.
This ballroom should have been filled to capacity, soul men and divas of Devizes, or anyone with a penchant for disco dancing of yore should take note, keep your eye on Maurice & Patrick’s future events, we will highlight them on our event calendar, your NYE is sorted there. Such it was, that on a mild night, between seasons of Long Street Blues Club, with no Arts Festival, DOCA, Food Festival, or even a show at the Wharf, that a weekend in Devizes is always on the cards, always there is a few options of something going on, and they’re usually pretty good!
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London-based Errol Linton and band made a welcomed return to Devizes’ Long Street Blues Club last night. In June I was surprised to label it my personal best night at Long Street. Catching them again equally did not disappoint, despite knowing what I was letting my mojo in for…..
If Flo’s recent review of the Devizes Youth Action club night expressed a need for gigs for local youngsters, we’re not ageist here and tonight I’m at the other end of the spectrum; yeah, say it, I can take it – where I belong!
Long Street Blues Club welcomes all, but largely attracts older middle-classes with a collective passion for the blues, implanted via the historic Mel Bush effect. Ticket prices also play a part in governing clientele, but you certainly get value for money. All the tried and tested acts booked on their seasonal programmes are of a superior class and quality. Long Street should be proud of the landmark they’ve created. It’s enough to pull devotees from Cardiff to London.
In its present-day form, Long Street Blues Club turns sweet sixteen this year, though with his brother Rick, town councillor and ex-mayor Ian Hopkins revived Devizes’ fixation with the blues mid-nineties.
Typically monthly, it offers the diverse range within its blues tagline its regulars crave. While others may favour British electric blues, prog-rock, or country blues, and these are readily available, I’m smitten for precisely what Errol and his band lay down, an irresistible mesh of Memphis, Delta boogie and jump with the wonderful twist of Errol’s Jamaican roots. Yeah, it’s going to switch to an offbeat, and set the Devizes Conservative Club to skank!
Likely the most prominent example of this in his set is a cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s Howlin’ for my Darlin‘, in which, after an explanation of the blues legend’s time in Jamaica, it rolls off with a one-drop reggae riff to make Joe Higgs blush.
Much is the set, a sublime and highly polished blues act with this resplendent reggae hook. I believe in my last review I waffled on a tangent about offbeat jump blues and shuffle rhythms influencing post wartime Jamaica via American radio stations, and the accidental hook creating the ska sound at an alleged Prince Buster recording session at Duke Reid’s Treasure Island studio. While I cited Jamaica’s first national sound, ska, as a major influence on Errol’s original output, tonight I felt a larger portion was ska’s successors rock steady and reggae. Maintaining the rootsy Delta boogie throughout, even tastes of dub was hinted at, as the pace steadied to hypnotic riddims; now, that’s right up my street and knocking on my door.
The crowd felt the vibe too, and while Long Street is a seated music appreciation society where idle chit-chat is frowned upon during a performance, folk felt the irresistible urge to shake their thang for the finale. For me, while happy it’s hardly stage-diving, mosh pit country here, I don’t know how anyone could’ve kept still last night!
It was a full house for this amazing five-piece, natural entertainer Errol on vocals and harmonica, pounding upright bassist Lance Rose, invigorating lead guitarist Richey Green, Petar Zivokvic wildly pushing the ivory, and devine drummer Gary Williams. Errol recounted tales of family ties, his parent’s immigration influencing a new song which came across decidedly dub in its initial King Tubby incarnation, whereas another memorable moment for me came with a country-tinged ballad called Country Girl, so gorgeously delivered it could’ve come from Toots Hibbert’s songbook. It was that magical.
They played with skill, joy and gusto, but not before Oxford’s acoustic bluesman Thompson Smurthwaite pulled out an impressive support. A regular at the Southgate I’ve yet to have had the pleasure of hearing, though Andy has reported previously.
I don’t know if Thompson sold his soul to the devil at the Botley interchange, but there was something decidedly deeply-rooted in his enlightening set of relatable originals and prison-type narrative about life on canals, with casual scat vocals akin to Robert Johnson himself, and all the sublime harmonica and guitar picking of any Mississippi blues legend of yore.
Another cracking night at Long Street Blues Club. I was content enough just to be back in Devizes with cider in hand, after hibernation, broken by teetotal stints at The Pump and Wiltshire Music Centre! Anything else would’ve been a bonus, ergo, Errol’s band, and Thompson too made it a bonus ball the size of the boulder chasing Indiana Jones!
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First up on the stage, on Friday night, we had the 4-piece Pete G & The Magnitones as a very worthy and hugely enjoyable support act, with their interpretation of the Chicago Blues. But this was only the taster for the real thing to come, John Primer with the Giles Robson Band.
This guy, an absolute legend, and King of the Chicago Blues, was back “by public demand” and that was no empty boast, as the room was rammed for a completely sold-out show. He’s been Grammy nominated three times, and was inducted to the National Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis last year. As the bandleader and lead guitarist for Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Magic Slim & The Teardrops, this guy’s virtuosity as a blues musician was forged by real blues legends. He’s recorded more than 87 albums, with 17 of those in his own name. He’s written and produced more than 55 songs on more than six record labels including his own, Blues House Productions.
What a pedigree! So there can be no doubting that this guy is the real deal, an absolute Chicago Blues icon, and here he was playing in our town.
Featuring Pascal Delmas on drums, Antoine Escalier on bass, and Giles Robson on harmonica, the 4-piece band delivered a single two-hour plus set of stunning Chicago blues. Giles Robson is no slouch either. He’s a multi award winning, internationally recognized Blues harmonica virtuoso, singer and masterful showman. He was the only UK or European artist to appear on Chicago’s legendary Alligator Records (who described him as “A blues giant, absolute master of the form”). He’s only one of three UK blues artists (alongside Eric Clapton and Peter Green) to win a coveted Blues Music Award in Memphis (the Grammys of the Blues). His albums are in the top of the world’s most prestigious music magazines critics’ polls.
No disrespect to Pete G, but this main band’s sound was just so much fuller and more solid. Primer delivered gravelly vocals and some simply stunning guitar licks. The atmosphere and feeling injected into the material was superb, particularly I thought on Rainy Night In Georgia and Hoochie Coochie Man. The pace varied from fully-leaded driving blues, down to more sedate walking blues numbers. And it never seemed to stop – interspersed with only minimal chat, the numbers just kept on coming. Robson, meanwhile, played some beautiful, powerful, emotional and timeless blues with a deep groove and laden with intense feeling. His howling, growling, squealing sound, was imbued with rhythmic power and sensitive emotional expressiveness. Standing like a pair of giants at either side of the stage, and letting the rhythm section do their thing with great accomplishment in the middle, these two great artists played off each other, varying between a healthy competiveness and at other times a complementary tonal harmony.
The guy’s slogan is “You can’t paint the Blues without the Primer” and you could certainly see why. Primer was indeed the real deal, and he delivered a fantastic show that went on long into the Devizes night. Eleven out of ten on my Happy Scale!
So that was Friday done and dusted. But there was still Saturday to go! And so it was that Ian Hopkins’ LSBC combined with Paul Chandler’s Longcroft Productions to bring us another amazing, but completely different, show on the very next night.
Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman were touring their brand new studio album, and Devizes was only the second stop on that tour.
Introductions first – Damian Wilson is an English songwriter and vocalist who’s known for his exploration into different genres and is considered one of the most versatile singers in rock. To date he’s released six solo albums and three albums as a duo with Adam Wakeman. He balances his career as a singer-songwriter with being an energetic frontman for rock bands and guest vocalist. He’s toured all over the world fronting bands such as Rick Wakeman’s ERE and Threshold. He’s performed on the most prominent stages in the UK, during his two-year tenure as the lead in Les Misérables.
Adam Wakeman is best known as the keyboard and guitar player with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. He’s also released nine albums with father Rick Wakeman, and five solo albums. As a classically trained pianist, his albums cross many genres and styles from classical to rock. He co-wrote the 2010 platinum selling album Scream with Ozzy Osbourne and has also toured extensively with Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Rick Wakeman, Travis, Annie Lennox, Will Young, Slash, 10CC and many more. And, as a further feather in his well-decorated hat, he recently stepped in at short notice to play keyboards on tour for Deep Purple.
So yet again – a couple of impeccable pedigrees. And yet again two guys who absolutely lived up to their billing as brilliant composers, musicians and singers. Right from the opening piss-take chords of Smoke On The Water from Adam, and the belated comedy walk-on from Damian, we were in for a great night. If anybody was in doubt, this was all very different from the previous night – the Blues it certainly wasn’t. What we got instead was two hour-long sets of superb original songs, interspersed with an easy-going laddish banter between these two stars.
There were delicately-structured songs, soaring vocals from Damian, with sympathetic harmonies and fills from Adam. There were romantic and uplifting melodies from Adam’s keyboard which permeated every song, and provided musical background to the chatty interludes. The tracks they featured from the new album each had a backstory. I was particularly struck with Can We Keep The Light On Longer and Multiplicity – fabulous songs. I was absolutely loving this.
What I liked slightly less – and this is my only note of old man’s carping criticism – was the frequent use of an old skool cassette recorder (with its own back-story) as a comedy device, and the sometimes overlong, extended rambling chatter. I found it a bit self-indulgent and caused the occasional loss of momentum and atmosphere. What I kept wanting them to do was to do what they did superbly – play/ sing the songs! At times it felt a bit incoherent and under-rehearsed, but there were elements of a double-bluff as the comedy riffs ended and the next belting song came along.
But that’s a very minor criticism of what was overall a stunningly good performance from two very talented artists. I was kept amused and well-entertained – a cracking night out.
So – once again – hats off to Ian Hopkins and to Paul Chandler for bringing what can only be described as world-class talent to our town. This is why you should support live music and our music venues. Brilliant.
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