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Blues’ (with Paul Jones on harp), and closes with his own Dave Kelly Band favourite, ‘I Am The
Blues’. He also shows just how good his voice is with a cover of The Temptations’ ‘My Girl’.

Dave is now an elder statesman of the British blues. This fine album shows why he deserves
that status.

Norman Darwen

Diego Mongue Band—While You Were Gone—Independent

Diego — “the latest face of the blues” - is the oldest son of Gina
Coleman, singer and guitarist with Misty Blues; he is the drum-
mer (and sometimes bassist) for Misty Blues too, leader of the
youth blues band Born IV Blues and also has a jazz fusion outfit,
GrossMongue. A busy man then, but all of these are relevant for

this release.

This is certainly a blues set, but it presents a younger take on the
music and there are definite modern jazz influences. Diego plays
both drums and bass on this set, but what stood out after the first listening was the organ
sound (two keyboards players are listed so I’m not sure who is actually responsible) right
from the gospel-inflected tear-‘em-up of the opening instrumental, ‘Intro’ to the closing, funky
blues of ‘Blues All Day’. It made me think a little of some of the more experimental mid-60s UK
blues-rooted outfits.

Mind you, the vocals of Chantell McFarland also leave a very strong impression. She is an
excellent, flexible singer, able to tackle a bit of jazz scat, gospel flavoured soul or the blues
straight up. That’s not to say that the guitarists, and especially Diego himself are not impres-
sive — they are, and this is certainly a band effort.

It is also a distinctively individual sound, and you don’t hear that too much about blues
recordings these days. Recommended of course.

Norman Darwen

Evan Nicole Bell—Runaway Girl—Independent

Wow! Take a listen to ‘Catfish Blues’, maybe inspired by Jimi
Hendrix, but this is gritty blues-rock with a sultry vocal by Evan
Nicole that hits the spot. That won’t surprise anyone though
who has heard the cover of ‘Crosscut Saw’ which went viral
online, by this young African-American singer and multi-instru-
mentalist (she plays all instruments except drums on this debut
release) out of Baltimore, Maryland — or indeed come across
any of her other music.

The other tracks on this EP tend to shift the focus more onto her
stunning vocals and original songs, drawing both on soul music and blues, plus elements of