Balancing Act – Amy Winehouse

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Amy Winehouse performing in Berlin in 2007

Image via Wikipedia

‘I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I’m no good ‘

Sad news this week that Amy Winehouse joined the infamous 27 Club of famous musicians who ended their lives almost before they truly began.  „They will never grow old“ to paraphrase the lost souls of the Great War.  Truly they never will.  Who can imagine Hendrix without a frilled shirt and bell bottomed trousers?  or Morrison without a lean, hungry look and leather trousers?  Amy Winehouse will now forever be the girl with a bee hive on, and sadly in, her head.  A crazy mixed up kid with a musical gift that was greater than she could carry.

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Dana Fuchs Interview

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With three young starlets currently playing on the ‘Girls with Guitars’Tour, the question might be asked “Does Thomas Ruf really need another female Blues musician on his impressive roster at Ruf Records?”  If you’ve been lucky enough to catch Dana Fuchs on one of her European Tours, or on the road in the States, Then you will know the answer is an emphatic ‘yes!’  The girl fromNew York has been playing to ecstatic audiences throughout Europe in promotion of the new ‘Love to Beg’ CD.  I managed to track her down between concerts, acting, and photo shoots to find out more about Dana Fuchs, her Blues roots and the ‘Church of Rock n Roll’ as she describes her energy laden shows.

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Gregg Allman at Museumsplatz

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The title decieves.  This wasn’t ‘just’ Gregg Allman but an evening featuring some of the Blues genres brightest stars.  Derek Trucks recently crowned a year of Awards for his own band to split it up and go on Tour with his wife Susan Tedeschi, herself a highly rated musician back in the USA.  Not forgetting either that there was also a Brit blues talent making his Bonn debut in the shape of young (just 19) Krissy Matthews.

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The Pogues – Men you don’t meet everyday

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In 2002 Q Magazine listed The Pogues as “One of the fifty bands to see before you die”

A little late maybe; but last Thursday at Bonns Museumsplatz I got around to the task, and, whilst it would perhaps be optimistic to hope that Punk-Folk was well,  was it still alive?  The Pogues would be a chance to find out.

It’s 8pm, and I’ve been standing in the Photo-pit with a monitor blasting music directly into my ear for half an hour. There’s a plastic duck sitting on top of a backstage speaker that I’ve now ‘shot’ three times with my camera just to pass the time. Roadies shuffle back and forth onstage; we’re half an hour late and no band. Fans I’d spoken to on the train from Cologne had been enthusiastically talking about the Band, but I had the impression that a show stood or fell on the physical condition of singer and renowned drinker Shane MacGowan. Now, as MacGowan finally took the stage, I feared his appearance didn’t bode well for the evening.

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Hugh Laurie-Let Them Talk – Take Two (WB 2564674078)

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No, it’s not a new CD (already?!) from Mr Laurie.   My earlier review of ‘Let Them Talk’  brought a lot of traffic so I asked for a musician’s eye view   from The Folk Club Bonn’s resident MC,  Blues player and Blues Fan John Harrison:

Some Englishmen have a rare predilection with Jazz and with the Blues. They are often white but certainly not always middle-class, as Hugh Laurie professes to be. They are drawn to the simple majestic poetry of both the lyrics and the initially seemingly primitive music which could not possibly be further removed from England’s green and pleasant land and the Establishment firmly established upon it.

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Bonn Folk Club – Where the time goes!

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'Joker' share a joke

After last months mammoth sax session at Bonn Folk Club in Grauerheindorf,  we had an evening where just about every other instrument except a saxophone was present it seemed.  From the regulatory house piano, to the exotic Brazilian 10 string ‘Viola Caipira’ and finally with a rousing finale from the multi talented (and multi instrumental) DerElligh.

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