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A full house at the
world famous jazz’n’blues venue The 100 Club London, were submitted to
an excellent night of acoustic blues by Billy G Wride of The Revelators
and electric blues by international blues man Lil’Dave Thompson of
Greenville Mississippi, this was all possible due to John Steadman of
JSP Records promoting the show. Anticipation was high for this show with
an excellent promotion campaign by JSP, the doors opened at 7.00pm with
a steady flow of people coming through, by 8.30pm the 100 Club was
packed.
First up was Lil’
Dave Thompson’s guest for the evening Billy G Wride of The Wales based
delta blues band The Revelators, Billy G seated himself close to the
front of the stage and nervously tweeked his amplifier, thanked JSP for
putting on the show and proclaimed this was pretty scary! Billy G
cranked up is amplifier picked up his steel dobra and went straight
into Muddy Waters ‘ Rollin and Tumbling’ this seemed to have eased his
nerves and Billy looked confident and comfortable, this was rousing
rentision and at the end of the song dedicated it to the late RL
Burnside who had recently died, this brought a great response from the
audience.
Billy G, went
effortously through a number of tracks including Red Rooster, I Cant’ Be
Satisfied, Death letter Blues andthen picked up his Taylor guitar and
and gave some fine renditions of Baby Please Don’t Go, Gallows Pole,
Help Me and Where Did You Sleep Last night. Billy G’s guitar style is
raw and authentic without any frills, and vocally sings in a delta pre
war style and was pretty convinsing ,after about 35 mins his set was
over and he thanked the audience and left the stage – I think we will be
seeing a bit more of Billy G Wride and The Revelators, if you like you
blues raw and authentic get to see them.
Lil’ Dave Thompson
and band take to the stage at around 9.15pm Dave dressed in a black
silk shirt and black sparkling silk trousers and topped off with a
Mississippi bluesmans hat, he looked like a young Muddy Waters. The band
go straight into an original Lil’ Dave song Standing In The Rain, Dave
is supremely confident in his ability to deliver an exceptional opening
number, Dave’s UK based band are also on the money this was their 10th
gig of the tour and Lil’ Dave has whipped them into shape. Lil’ Dave now
rattles off some great songs with some blistering lead guitar and
soloing, the audience are now riveted to their seats with some smoking
blues, numbers include, Cross Cut Saw, Messing With The Kid, Call Me
Baby and C’mon Down To The Delta.
Lil’ Dave’s style
and influences stand out clearly, and you cannot but make the
comparison with Albert King, Robert Cray and Chris Cain, Dave is surerly
going to be up there with all these exceptional artists, what Dave has
got on his side is age he is only 35 still young for an international
bluesman. The first set finishes all to quick and Dave is already busy
autoghraphing CD’s before he is ready for the second set, the band take
to the stage once more and kick off with a smoky blues version of the
Bill Withers classic ‘ Ain’t No Sunshine’ this is real class and brings
one of the best Reponses of the show. Dave is once again at full
throttle with songs from his JSP CD, C’mon Down to The Delta with at
least eight numbers coming from the album, also incuded in the second
set is a 10 min version of Stormy Mon and some great renditions of some
Howlin Wolf songs with ‘ Killing Floor’ being spectacular the set
finally comes to an end with the audience demanding an encore and the
band finish the show with Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile.
All in all this was a
fantastic night of blues in London’s most famous clubs, this was world
class blues and it’s only a matter of time that the name Lil’ Dave
Thompson will be up there along side the greats very soon. Finally it
was refreshing to see a new name in the acoustic blues scene Billy G
Wride, and keeping faith with the early delta blues sounds and also
being as authentic as he possibly could
Review
Sam London Music
School
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