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BiTS: I'll look it up anyway and put it in in due course. How did you feel the night that you actually
won the competition?

EL: I was a bit shocked. Good competition. The Milk Men were pretty good, so I was kind of
shocked as well. It was nice to win something. Everybody was happy. Yeah, it's not often we get
nominated or win anything? So it was nice to get a bit of recognition. We’ve been playing a lot
more blues venues in the last couple of years.

BiTS: You've been nominated a number of times in British Blues Awards and other things for
top harmonica playing. How do you feel about those?

EL: That was back in
Errol-Linton-Photo-Credit-Paul-Dubbelman
the 90s, for the Blues
In Britain Awards. I
won it in 98, 99 and
2000, and I haven't
won anything since

then [laughs].
BiTS: [Laughing]

Were you badly
affected by COVID? I
mean, did the gigs dry
up?

EL: Yeah, everybody
was... It was… yeah, it
was hard work. It was
hard work, but we
were quite lucky,
actually. We were
quite lucky in certain gigs. We got a few. We got loads cancelled, but you know, it's like anybody,
everybody suffered. It was a hard one.

BiTS: Since you won the competition, have gigs picked up for you? You play regularly somewhere,
I think. I can't remember the name of the place, though.

EL: Yeah, the gigs are coming through at the moment. Yeah, they're coming through quite well.
We're doing okay this year. I've got quite a few booked up for the next year already, which is a
good sign. So I'm hoping that it will raise our profile, definitely just because people don’t know
about me really, even though I’ve been playing for a long time, it's just getting yourself on the
right platform, isn't it? We're never on the right platform because we play blues, but really and
truly people just get up and dance to our stuff. Even with some of the slow stuff, people tend to
dance at our gigs. Definitely a lot in all sorts of funny places [laughs].

BiTS: Tell me who you are taking with you to the States? What are the names of the musicians?

EL: To the States? It’s the same band that I work with.

BiTS: Tell me something about them.

EL: You've got Gary Williams on drums. He's a great player. He comes from the jazz field. Works
with a lot of jazzers. You’ve got Lance Rose on bass. He's similar to Gary. Comes from a jazz
background as well. You've got Petar Zivokvic on piano. He comes from all sorts of backgrounds.
He’s played with many different bands and different associations or whatever you call it,