Folks - if you get the opportunity to go and see Woody Mann then grab it with both hands. He's on tour in the UK throughout October and November (details on his website www.woodymann.com). He arrived in Sheffield on Tuesday night and headed straight for the monthly folk club at the Fleur De Lys in Totley, Sheffield. He finished the night off for us and gave us a flavour of what to expect the following night at the Boardwalk, the 1st of his gigs.

At the Boardwalk (the old Black Swan or "Mucky Duck" as we used to call it when we were young "clubbers") Bob Hall and Hilary Blythe started the evening off brilliantly with some vintage Bob Hall Boogey-Woogey piano and Hilary's Bass guitar and backing vocals; great foot-tapping stuff. Bob introduced Woody as probably the world's best acoustic guitar player, and I'm not going to argue with that description after witnessing the most awesome improvisational acoustic folk/blues and dance music I've ever heard.

No surprise that Woody was a student of the legendary Rev Gary Davies, and that he taught a certain Mr Paul Simon how to play guitar, but it was a surprise to learn that Hollywood planned to do a movie on Robert Johnson, asking Puff Daddy to play the lead! Woody was asked if he could teach PD how to play guitar Robert Johnson style. Now I did say that Woody was an awesome player, but I didn't say he could work miracles - the movie idea was abandoned, and Puff D went back to doing what he does best....

So do yourselves a favour and go and see Woody. He's a lovely, lovely bloke too. I made a polite enquiry about his guitar and he went over to pick it up from it's stand and gave it to me with the words "have a play - tell me what you think". This is a Martin special signature edition, five thousand three hundred dollars worth. I was very careful with it.