.....and finally...
You will probably know that at this time of
year The Hat locates his flashing musical reindeer socks, hangs up his Big Red
Balls on the front door of Hat Mansions and settles down with Cozy to
battle with the tsunami that is Mariah Carey, George Michael
and Roy Wood interspersed with the occasional high octane Phil
Spector and The Pogues. Lazy mainstream radio DJ's will phone in last year's sing-along
play list with a sprinkle of x-factor and whatever novelty disc is
the hot ticket. Wall to wall tv repeats, old movies and mother's
bottle of Baileys will rise again along with that Dangerous Dutch Yellow Stuff in the fancy bottle and, depending on who is coming to dinner, those exotic fruits that only appear in December (figs,
dates, sprouts and cauliflower) will be in abundance.
Blues fans will have spent money they don't have, buying music for other people that they really want for
themselves; the hopeful list of presents has been drawn up and
circulated to the suggestible; the Download and Amazon fuses will
blow and serious sensible plans for the future will be put off until
'after it's all over'. Glossy magazines will fill with articles about
islands you can escape to – (with the likely short-coming that they
will be over-populated by fake-tanned irritating C-list nobodies).
Your smart rich friends will start talking annoyingly about Pistes and Black runs. You will want to kill people for being in your way on the
pavement. Your internet connection will overload and pack up - and
people you don't remember will send you an expensive card enclosing a
buttock-clenchingly awful newsletter and a colour picture of their unbelievably talented and incredibly ugly family. People everywhere
will make pointless lists of their top ten pointless lists.
So to sum it up. Let's all enjoy ourselves – and
lose our minds and wallets.
However, on a more entertaining subject....despite
the usual rumours to the contrary, The Blues is alive and well and
flourishing and it has been a great year with new young guns arriving
and familiar friends turning up with new CDs that remind you just how
Good is Good. Old hands and new stars are filling halls everywhere.
A glance across the pond encounters all those familiar names: Buddy Guy, B.B, Stephen Stills, Walter
Trout, Charlie Musselwhite, Tedeschi Trucks, Allmans and Nevilles, Tony Joe White, amongst others, still topping bills, riding high
in popularity and playing as well as ever. And now there is a whole new generation including Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr, Johny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and John Mayer out there pushing hard, wonderfully widening the blues audience and becoming international
names.
The Hat, as always, continues to be bullish and buoyant about our UK contemporary blues scene. Healthy, high quality
blues festivals - both large and multi-staged and small family affairs - proliferate across the country and, encouragingly, one of the smallest, Hebden,
picked up the best festival award for a second year. Across the country, blues venues still deliver, week in, week out, a rainbow-fest of every kind of blues talent.
A whole new wave of terrifyingly young talent is
storming the walls – The Mentulls, Alex McKown, BluesBoy Dan Owen all
make you want to shout out that the future will be in safe hands. Terrific new British blues albums continue to be
released. (No, I'm not making a list!) The brilliant Jo Harman is
surely flying to super-stardom, with her debut album, garnering
praise from every corner and every blues related genre. Lucy Zirins
also unveiled a stunning debut album that at a stroke established her
as a singer-songwriter force majeure. Aynsley Lister, Marcus Bonfanti, Paddy Milner and
Ben Poole are household names here and in Europe; Ron Sayer; Todd Sharpville, Matt
Taylor and the re-formed Hoax bring class and generate excitement
wherever they play; Russ Tippins and Northsyde are both busy laying down
an exciting, original and show-stopping blues-rock groove backed by fabulous CDs and they
are clearly going to be with us for years to come. The fearsome Scots
bluesmen who produced the Juke Joints trilogy have carved out a piece
of blues history....and so it goes on...the diverse, left field and
mega-talented Red Dirt Skinners, Babajack and Rabbit Foot draw an ever
larger fan-base as their fame and recordings spread - and quite amazingly, even at a
time when some venues are giving up the ghost, others are heroically breaking
onto the scene like death-defying testerone-fuelled adolescents
looking for some serious blues action. Bravo!
And having seen and heard so much that is so good...please allow me to mention just two particular live blues moments that Rattled the Richter scale on The Hat's
horizon this year. The first was witnessing the mighty John Crampton
nearly dismantling the walls and roof of a gig with a heart stopping
virtuoso display of solo blues and blue grass. The second was being
present when Kyla Brox gave an absolutely spellbinding vocal Master Class on the
bill of this year's Hebden Bridge Blues Festival. If you do nothing
else next year, go find those two. Oh yeah, you don't have to be an
optimist about the blues...it's all out there waiting for you....go
get it...
Some of my more mature followers will
remember TV's early penchant for ending any programme - serious news
or ludicrous banter - with the words..”And Finally”...and
then they would run a vaguely amusing piece of film - usually about a 'loveable' Skate-Boarding Duck...
So....And Finally here is my Droll Duck.....
This will be The Hat's last Blog on this site. I have written
a squillion words (Oh to be paid by the word!) and many blogbits in my rambling self-indulgent
prose over a Good Few Years now. I had a pretty good run - especially as I am acutely aware that in the ephemeral world of The Blog, where everyone is a blogger, the vast majority tend to fade away and Die when you are not looking. I have
eulogised and fantasised. Syntax has been Butchered. Capital Letters have been abused and Punctuation has been Pulverised. Even Bad Poetry got read. I brazenly sneaked in my
prejudices and tried not to sniff too loudly at other people's. It has
been hugely enjoyable and I have grown to appreciate, admire and love
the many blues people who have loyally shouted at their screen, populated my
in-box, my mail box and my downloads and unfailingly have been kind, courteous, quizzical and friendly at live gigs.
The blues community, warts and all, is a nice place to live. The talent out there is quite outrageous, the divas are almost invisible, the support is extraordinary - from the hip ear-worm radio guys to the mad front row air-punchers and shape-throwers - and the debates, correspondence, cheerful rants and friendly banter flourish – as is only right and proper with such a dynamic and organic music form.
Nevertheless, having ink in my blood and a partiality for the florid literary thrust, The Hat, as you would expect, will remain open and in the market for lucrative offers, graft, corruption, guest appearances, bribery, stuffed brown envelopes and free stuff from any and every source, large or small. For the meanwhile, I leave this particular tiny blogstage knowing that my beloved music is in rude health and will remain so.
The blues community, warts and all, is a nice place to live. The talent out there is quite outrageous, the divas are almost invisible, the support is extraordinary - from the hip ear-worm radio guys to the mad front row air-punchers and shape-throwers - and the debates, correspondence, cheerful rants and friendly banter flourish – as is only right and proper with such a dynamic and organic music form.
Nevertheless, having ink in my blood and a partiality for the florid literary thrust, The Hat, as you would expect, will remain open and in the market for lucrative offers, graft, corruption, guest appearances, bribery, stuffed brown envelopes and free stuff from any and every source, large or small. For the meanwhile, I leave this particular tiny blogstage knowing that my beloved music is in rude health and will remain so.
...and so, to my kind readers in the UK and those many scattered around the world in exotic places like Saudi Arabia,
South America, Chicago and old boats on The Thames, I say Thank You; 'it's not you
it's me'; sayonara, arrivederci; au revoir and farewell. It was a
lotta fun ....and while you're in Fun Mode....here is One Final Live Gig
- by four brilliant but very Dead people - including.appropriately, a very confused T-Bone Walker - especially for you, my good friends.
A Very Happy Christmas to all You and Yours!!!
Pip Pip..
The Blues Man in The Hat - and his Zenmaster Cat Cozy