The Greatest Weekend
One year after spending the weekend at Colne’s Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival, my mate Rich proclaimed that it pissed all over Glastonbury. At that precise moment I agreed with every fibre of my drink shattered husk of a body. Now I’m not 100% sure, partly because I haven’t been for a few years but also partly because I have to concede that Glastonbury is pretty renowned the world over and Colne is not. Glastonbury is all over the telly and Colne is not. International artists of all statures will do anything to appear at Glastonbury festival but I can’t figure out how I’d get Kanye to Colne. Or even Shania.
I haven’t been for a few years now due to LG gigs clashing with the August Bank Holiday in Colne. That’s no bad thing, my escapades there frequently left me richer in spirit but so much poorer financially that the cycle needed to be broken. Even if I gigged three times a day the twenties and thirties couldn’t get into my pockets quicker than the rounds pulled them out. I wish all the best to everybody heading up there this weekend though, I wish you good weather and jollity. I hope you don’t get clobbered by some teenager in a pair of black joggers who spends most of his life with his hand nestled by his ballbag. I hope you don’t pick up a squinting, drunken ex-paratrooper called Gerry who you simply can’t shake off for the whole of Sunday. I hope it isn’t 1am on Tuesday when you remember you’ve got a shift in the tap factory in a few hours. And of course I hope you enjoy the music. These are my favourite spottings at Colne festival.
Mavis Staples
One of the disadvantages of such a fun weekend is that I often walk away with little more than a mental residue of having seen something awesome. I saw Mavis, I reckon it was 2011 but it could’ve been 2012 couldn’t it? She was great and she sounded like she always did, the body has aged a little but the voice that inhabits it is still a majestic one. I'm a bit shy on any specifics though.
The Zombies
The great advantage of local rogue Pete Barton running Colne Blues festival is that he’s prepared to go tenuous on the links to “Rhythm and Blues”. He was satisfied that the Zombies were significantly influenced by Blues like all postwar English school boys so he stuck them in on a Sunday afternoon in 2007. Or let’s say 2007 or so. I think I’m right on that one, I got up and played Green Onions with the Animals in the set before them. Anyway, it wasn’t blues and it was barely rhythm and blues but it was the best set of the weekend. Blunstone is another human with a voice unravaged by age and Rod Argent is, for me, one of the finest Hammond organists this country has ever produced. I was really saddened to hear that Rod had a stroke earlier this year, and whilst he says he isn’t finished with music I think the touring might be done. I’m glad I’ve seen them three times, Odessey and Oracle is possibly the greatest British album of the 60s. I know, I know, the Beatles Madden. You need to remember the Beatles. Still though…
Albert Lee, Steve Cropper, Andy Fairweather Low
This remarkable lineup all happened in one day in 2008, one of those days where I stand there, mouth agape with lager dribbling through my beard and thinking “Colne really is the greatest festival in the UK…”
To see Albert Lee play in the flesh was a holy moment for me, my Dad always talked reverentially of the English boy who picked better than any American and as discussed previously I’m a massive Emmylou fan so I knew his work with the Hot Band well. He was fucking staggering live though, he even played piano on one tune which really pissed on my chips. The official pianist in the band was Elio Pace who I later found out had the residency on Wogan, here you can see Albert and Elio playing Country Boy in 2010 for dear old Terry:
Cropper was amazing, obviously. He was backed by the Animals, or rather Pete Barton’s Animals and Friends, so it was hardly the Stax Soul Review. Pete is a good sport but he isn’t Otis Redding. There was something magic about hearing and seeing that guitar playing happen in the same room as you though. I went backstage and got him to sign a 7” of Green Onions afterwards and Albert Lee was patiently queuing behind me for a chance to shake Steve Cropper’s hand, which made me love him even more.
After watching these two on the bounce I thought I’d seen enough legendary musicianship for the day but then everybody told me to wait and see Andy Fairweather Low. I didn’t really know him, he’s famous for being in Amen Corner and then really gained everybody’s respect for being man of the match on Clapton’s MTV unplugged performance. I sort of hate Clapton but I stayed anyway and it was worth it, Fairweather Low really is world class and an unsung star of Britain’s musical glory days. Here he is playing in Darwen in 2007 because the Colne footage I found was shite.
Booker T
Saving the most monumental till last, Booker T played at Colne in 2012, touring his outstanding The Road From Memphis. It’s the album he made with the Roots and is easily my favourite organ album of this new godforsaken millennium. If you havn’t heard it let’s take an hour out of our day and listen to it now.
The day I bought that album I listened to it over and over again in full, it’s a perfect recording of amazing musicianship with a couple of noteworthy cameos. Listen to it anyway, do I ever let you down?
It was a mesmerising gig, we all loved it so much there was no hesitation in booking to see Booker again a couple of years after at Band On the Wall. It was at that show that I got this keepsake photograph of Richard, Barney and me bothering the legend after he’d played. Nicky must've taken it because he isn't in it.
I will cherish it forever.