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she no longer cares (or is it that the lady doth protest too much?), and so too does Dave’s
guitar break. An excellent blues all round, this one…

Norman Darwen

(www.pollyokearyandtherhythmmethod.com)

Will Johns—Bluesdaddy—Galetone

Brighton-based singer and guitarist Will has some rather
impressive family connections – well, his uncles include Uncle
Eric, Uncle George and Uncle Mick, surnames Clapton, Harrison
and Fleetwood respectively. It is no great surprise therefore to
find that he has a straight blues set here, with a bunch of classics
rendered well and in a way that shows some individual touches.

Proceedings get off to a good start with ‘Every Day I Have The
Blues’, close to BB King’s usual concert opener, but with a few

added twists. BB is in fact a major source for the repertoire here,
though Will tends to play them slightly rockier (but that is only
slightly, for the most part), or perhaps he leans a little more towards Freddy King on some of them.
Muddy Waters has also clearly left his mark on Will, though ‘I Just Wanna Make Love To You’ leans
very much towards the blues-rock side of things.

He also runs through excellent material from Ry Cooder (the slide driven ‘Call Me Willy’), Tommy
Tucker with the immortal ‘High Heel Sneakers’, Robert Johnson’s ‘When You Got A Good Friend’
and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Oh Well’ – that’s the rockiest number here, obviously. The venerable ‘Rolling

& Tumbling’ becomes a real tear-’em-up in an early Yardbirds vein.

OK, this won’t win any awards for originality. Although he is a talented songwriter, Will only has
one of his own compositions here, the title track. However, with a very tight band in support,
including some excellent sax and keyboards playing, this is a rather tasty set all round. It’s worth
checking it out if what you’ve read has whetted your blues appetite.

Norman Darwen

(www.willjohns.com)

Mark Harrison Band—The Road to Liberty—Independent

This beautifully packaged double CD set does not really
sound like anyone else around at the moment. Mark is an
excellent finger-picker and slide player, with his acoustic
approach subtly supported by a rhythm section of Charles

Benfield on various instruments but mainly upright bass,
and drummer Ben Welburn. It can be a difficult sound to
achieve, but these three pull it off to perfection, with the
leader’s warm voice suiting the material to a T.

Although Mark writes about a variety of subjects, he

frequently references the blues originators—there is a song
about Skip James here (‘Skip’s Song’)—and employs many blues allusions. For example,