Just me, with the occasional blues harp player, bass man, or second guitar. On my CD, the Dobro backing is played by Phil Beer and the blues harp by Mick Burch.
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Influences
Big Bill Broonzy. Muddy Waters, Pink Anderson, Doug McLeod, Blind Blake, Tampa Red, Jesse Fuller
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I am one of the 'Old Greys' that haunt the music scene. Born in the UK, I started playing music in the mid 1950s and was part of the skiffle craze, a musical rage generated, in large part, by the activities of jazz trombonist Chris Barber and Chris's banjo man Lonnie Donegan. They and others (like Ken Colyer, The Vipers and Chas McDevitt) introduced me to the Blues and to some early Old Timey Country Music. The musical sources for skiffle were primarily American black and white roots idioms. Chris Barber and one or two of his contemporaries were at the forefront of bringing to the UK some artists whose names are now legends; Muddy Waters, Jesse Fuller, Big Bill Broonzy, Howling Wolf and more. These visitors to the UK had a massive influence on what is today called yoof culture, often appearing on teenage music TV programmes like 6.5 Special, Oh Boy!, not to mention the awful Juke Box Jury, which when Wolf appeared, voted his record Love Me Darlin, as a miss. Bizarrely, the panel included Lonnie Donegan . Anyway, all this was enough to stimulate the interest of the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things and others, including me, to check out the roots of the music. For me it was the start of a life-long love affair.
I took every chance to play, and when I first moved to London in 1958, took the opportunity to rub shoulders with people at blues clubs in the city; The Roundhouse, 100 Oxford Street and The Marquee, but principally the Troubadour in Old Brompton Road, where I was a regular. There I met and made music with the likes of Long John Baldry, Alexis Korner, Wally Whyton and towards the folky end of the music scene, Martin Carthy and Shirley Collins. Slowly however, career and a growing family took over and although I still played in public occasionally, the gigs got fewer and fewer, save for a short spell as a resident at a club in west London. Eventually even that stopped. Then, for my 60th birthday, my lovely wife Tricia organised a surprise party for me. She booked a blues band to entertain and one of the members, who knew that I played, persuaded me to join them. I did and found that I wanted to go back to gigging. So here we are.
In the last couple of years I have done quite a few gigs and have been delighted to open for Otis Grand, Doug MacLeod and Sherman Robertson. My new CD (See above) is going well. I have also been DJing, doing a blues programme on Vibraphonic FM (See my Blog)
Hey! Thank you for supporting my music. Check out my web site at www.vanessathompson.net and my music videos at www.youtube.com. One of my youtube videos is below for you to hear. If you like it, feel free to put it on your page and share it with your friends. There are also some banners on my page if you want to use them on your page. If you have Facebook, please add me. Some are putting me in their top friends. The support is really appreciated. Hope you like the new cover on Hollywood Celebrity Magazine. If you like my music, please add it to your play list for others to hear. Thank you :)
I will be opening for Baby Bash & Frankie J with special guest Paula Deanda in July, 2009 at the El Corazon in Seattle, Wa. at 8 PM. If you can be there, get you tickets now before it sells out. It is for all ages. See you there ~ Vanessa :)
Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists will be returning from their tours of the Isles of Scilly and 'The North' to play at The Acorn in Penzance, and the Phoenix in Exeter on 17th and 18th April, respectively. Support on both dates will be amply supplied by their feral folkie friends from Devon 'Bert Miller and the Animal Folk'.
Details:
Friday April 17th JULIAN GASKELL & HIS RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS …plus BERT MILLER & THE ANIMAL FOLK
ACORN ARTS CENTRE Parade Street, Penzance, Cornwall, TR18 4BU Doors 8. 30pm
Hi Ian, nice to hear from you. Didn't know you had a MySpace site, thanks for the request. Could you send me a message with the info on the 1920s blues song again as it was deleted when I accepted you as a friend!
Have a good week,
Mila
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PMTeatime on www. phonic. fm, every 3rd Wednesday of the month, 4-6pm.
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