City Lights and beyond

The latest leg of our US road trip has taken us to a town called El Centro, near the Mexican border. Yesterday John, Alan, Noah and I spent the afternoon at Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas followed by lunch at Bonnie Springs. In the evening we made a return visit, after a year, to City Lights, a great but seemingly little known club where blues is the order of the day on a Monday.
Providing the entertainment is Bobby Jones, originally from Chicago, who possesses a wonderfully soulful voice. He has recorded under the name of Bobby Jonz to avoid confusion with the gospel singer of the same name. He was superb on blues/soul material including The Turning Point and Sweet Little Angel, with a great band which included Sticks Taylor, nephew of Ko Ko, on drums. I meanwhile was enjoying a delightful evening with the incredibly glamorous Monique Brewster who I first met on our previous trip. Monique is a great singer and she set the place alight with a couple of numbers including It Dont Hurt No More. She has performed many times on the Las Vegas strip but is currently looking for a new agent. She should be snapped up immediately in my opinion. Also singing on the night was David Prescott, who did a stunning version of Smokey's Ooh Baby Baby. I can't overstate how much I enjoyed the evening at City Lights. Hope I can go again soon.
Leaving Vegas next morning we headed south, stopping for an ice cream at Peggy Sue's Diner. From there we went to the Joshua Tree National Park before driving on to El Centro. It's getting hot and may be hotter still tomorrow when we move on to San Diego.