FROM “BLUES IN BRITAIN MAGAZINE”, February 2010
LIVE BLUES REVIEW
BLUESMIX
@ Charlotte Street Blues, London. 13/11/09
Over the past six months London has seen a sudden growth in the number of venues featuring live blues. This venue in particular seems to be going from strength to strength and on this night the place was crammed full with people seemingly happy to pay a fiver to see popular London based band BluesMix. Lets hope it continues to be like this, its great for the Blues to have such a popular largescale new Blues venue in the heart of London.
BluesMix are mainstays on the South-East Blues scene as well as touring further afield ; they mentioned from the stage a recent return from a week long USA tour and two albums on release. On the night’s showing deserve to have more attention alongside the current crop of newer UK Blues names. Their performance was the real deal full of sweat, emotion, groove, incredible musicianship. They have an authentic Blues feel but with an original twist playing plenty of original material and weaving in funk, soul and occasional tinges of jazz.
They kicked off with an original powerhouse shuffle called ‘Feel So Strong featuring a tour de force piano solo from keys player Bob Morgan and powerful, distinctive blues vocals from Rob Fleming. The band then worked their way through another original ‘Heart and Soul’ with tasteful guitar licks aplenty from Fleming, a take on ‘Howlin For My Darlin’ by Howlin Wolf before changing gears with a funk based original song called ‘In My Mind’ where Morgan switched to highly melodic jazz tinged sax.
By this time the front of the stage was crammed with people dancing and swaying to the funky rhythms. The band was relaxed, confident and clearly enjoying playing.
Towards the end of the first set a guest joined, Pete Back on Sax and he and Morgan formed a horn section playing superb harmonized Sax lines on the catchy ‘I Got My Eye On You’ and the funk workout ‘ Do Together’. Echoes of Average White Band and Maceo Parker. After a short break the band were back for a second 1hour set playing classics such as ‘Worried About You Baby’ and a highly original take on ‘Mellow Down Easy’ with a tight Bo Diddley type rhythm from drummer Mimi Hajime, Hammond organ flourishes, and a jaw dropping Bass solo from Costa Tancredi and which had the crowd shouting their appreciation.
They ended the night with ‘Good Times Roll’, complete with most of the audience singing along. Smiles and satisfaction all around the venue and on the stage. BluesMix are an incredibly accomplished band with broad appeal and on the basis of tonight’s performance they are up there with the best of the UK blues scene.
Alan Budden
