Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The stage is always ready for musicians such as Herringbone John, the Blues come calling and the undisguised answer of the just and informed is always where and when and of course yes. The stage, no matter where, will give lofty inspiration and the eternal notion in the minds of those who witness such musicians, that they too can be true to themselves and hold a branch of cool slow groove to the next generation.

It is to Herringbone John, that the genre of Blues never took prisoner, an artist to whom it could be argued never allowed to be taken by the genre’s slow spiral of demise that took so many and to whom a hat must be tipped to keeping it fresh whilst others dwindled. The genre is nothing short of being full health again, the turn of the century having a monumental say it in its revival and to people such as Herringbone John, it must be seen as a thank you for the hard work and sweat driven hours.

With a mixture of songs in the short but punchy set, Herringbone John touched upon his own compositions and two songs by past masters, the Everyman Theatre, no stranger to the honest and the enlightened almost shook with the feeling of an acting legend two floors above the Bistro in which the musician found himself, and with the delight of the guitar in his hands. Sitting back and revelling silently in the thought, it was one that allowed the shiver of possibilities to come to the forefront of the mind, the slight relaxing manner into which dreams are catapulted and ejected as the deep sound of Blues wound itself round the finger of the audience.

With cover versions of Brian Jones’ No Expectations and Wilco Johnson’s Going Back Home entwining themselves freely with the songs Intercity Blues Train and Going Down Southpark Way, Herringbone John took the midweek audience in the Bistro space on a fun ride that encompassed cool and style; style in which the man has plenty of to go round.

Even without the rest of the band, watching Herringbone John is a well-defined pleasure, a man who has crossed the Rubicon of one generation’s Blues and who gives great acclaim to the power of the next.

Ian D. Hall