Review: Joe Hollywood in Ascot

Subject: Review: Joe Hollywood in Ascot
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 04:08 AM

A very sparse crowd (yet the night before the club was packed for a standard Blues Brothers/Committments repertoire soul band (Chain Gang)with three average singers)last night at Jagz for the talented young blues guitarist Joe Hollywood.
Yes, that's his real name, he's from South West London, he's tall and skinny and HE'S ONLY 17!
Three electric and one acoustic guitars in use, backed up by experienced session men "Foxy" [no other name supplied] (bass guitar) and "Funky" George Dare (drums).
The lad has an awesome technique, played everything from Robert Johnson to John Mayall, though mostly in plank-spanking mode, only a couple of acoustic numbers. His voice is probably too clean-cut for the blues, needs to roughen up a bit. He also played some of his own compositions which didn't impress me, but then I'm a miserable old bugger.
   I was depressed to hear him referring to "old" numbers by Cream, Hendrix, Albert King, John Mayall, as I refer to these as "new" numbers!
Apart from the band posse there were only about 10 of us there, including one of the regular bar staff on her night off having a meal with her boyfriend.
   It would be nice to think that talented youngsters like Joe encourage other young people to get into the real blues (as opposed to what they dare to call "R'n'B" these days) but first, people have got to turn up to hear him. He is appearing at a couple of festivals this year, see his website www.joehollywoodband.com for details.
   Back to Jagz for my third visit of the week this Saturday with the memsahib to see the "farewell to Dave Dog" by the Blues Groovers as guitarist & leader Dave is off to Portugal, my sources tell me. I hope the band keeps going with a replacement. Despite my initial prejudice against accordians, they won me over. Should be a great night.

RtS