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Andy Fairweather Low—The Invisible
Bluesman—The Last Music Company ASIN :
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In 1975 I went to see the American group The Ozark
Mountain Daredevils in Liverpool and fifty years on

I can’t remember a thing about them but I vividly
remember the support act—ex Amen Corner singer

Andy Fairweather Low who was brilliant.

I particularly remember a stunning version of ‘Gin
House Blues’ (Amen Corner’s first chart hit in 1967)

that night and that track also appears on this album and again it is a heartfelt
combination of the laid-back and the flat-out.

This album of covers of Andy’s favourite blues tracks begins with Arthur Crudup’s
‘My Baby Left Me’ much closer to the original than Elvis’s rocked up version with
subtle guitar and restrained rhythm section, ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’ gets a similar

relaxed take as does Slim Harpo’s ‘Got Love if You Want it’ with some lovely breathy
tenor sax.

Jimmy Reed’s ‘Baby What Do You Want Me To Do’ is also ‘relaxed’ but has an unusual
dissonant guitar figure running through it, ‘When Things Go Wrong’ (‘It Hurts Me

Too’) the old Tampa Red song and Carl Perkins’ ‘Matchbox’ both get jazzy treatments,
while ‘Junior Parker’s ‘Mystery Train’ is rocked up with some nice echoey guitar.

‘Bright Lights, Big City’ another Jimmy Reed song gets a ‘harder’ treatment, with nice

piano (from Chris Stainton) and Andy belting out the vocals and cutting loose on
guitar, while Lightnin’ Hopkins’ ‘Lightnin’s Boogie’ is an instrumental featuring Andy’s
electric guitar and ‘Life Is Good’ is a more modern poignant song by Finnish blues

singer/guitarist Erja Lyytinen.

Andy is supported here by Chris Stainton and Richard Milner keyboards, Dave Bronze

or Ian Jennings (bass) and Paul Beavis or Henry Spinetti on drums. This is a really
good album of blues songs that really hangs together but also provides a variety of

styles as well as both live and studio recordings, plus it has great playing from Andy
himself as well as the accompanying musicians.

Graham Harrison