Blues and soul at Eastside Kings

The Eastside Kings Festival hit its stride on Saturday with a series of shows featuring mainly lesser known blues artists in small bars in East Austin with some bigger names appearing at Antones later in the evening. Founded ten years ago by local bluesman Eddie Stout the festival is quite a low key affair with small audiences but is high in quality. Kicking off the music in the Circle bar in East 12th St was Johnny Nicholas a fine guitarist who was formerly a member of Asleep At The Wheel and who has played with many blues artists over the years. There were several artists playing at the same time in different bars nearby, including local bluesman Soul Man Sam, Goldie Pipes and the excellent Andrea Dawson, 'the sassy soulstress of the blues' who made an excellent impression. Boston harmonica player Keith Dunn was also performing as was Rip Lee Pryor, son of Snooky, and Little Jimmy Reed, who has been a regular visitor to the UK over the years The highlight of the afternoon session however was Eugene Hideaway Bridges who was himself a regular UK visitor in the nineties. Since then he has lived in Australia and Holland and it was good to see him again. His voice remaine in great shape on soulful renditions of songs including 'I Can Never Forget', 'Real Hero', 'Jump The Joint', 'She Want To Dance','I'll Be A King' and 'Rise Above It'.Excellent stuff. The final act I saw before dashing off to Antones was the Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band, which was originally formed by one of the last original Mississippi fife players Otha Turner over 60 years ago. Back at Antones, the first act of another exciting evening was Houston blues singer Trudy Lynn who I last saw in London nearly 30 years ago. Dressed in a dazzling sparkly blue/green dress she put on a great show which included numbers such as 'Life Goes On' from her new album 'Golden Girl' which marked her 75th birthday. Other songs included a raunchy number called '29 Ways', 'Blues Aint Nothing' and 'Just A Little Bit'. Backing the next two acts was an extraordinary Japanese band called Bloodest Saxophone, featuring two saxes and an excellent guitarist who together made one hell of an impact. The first vocalist they supported was Crystal Thomas, a dynamic young blues singer from Louisana who has a big powerful voice to match her plus size frame. She was superb on a series of R and B and soul numbers including 'Let Me Down Easy', 'Just Like A Fish','I Want A Man' and 'Let The Good Times Roll'. This was certainly good time music and the saxophones played a big part in making this a sensational set. The final act of what was another wonderful evening of music was southern soul singer Stan Mosley. Stan has a voice that is similar to that of Wilson Pickett and has performed at Porretta twice, in 2016 and last years Christmas festival. Starting with 'I'm A Bluesman',his all too short set included Al Green's 'Love And Happiness', 'If I Can't Be What You Want' and 'I'm Back'. Highly enjoyable and good to see him again.