Storm Warning – New Crawdaddy Blues Club – 4^th May 2006

On what was the hottest day of 2006 (so far) it was great to sit in the air-conditioned comfort of the New Crawdaddy and enjoy a band who, in the relatively short time they have been together have taken many a festival by storm, have played throughout the UK and ventured into Europe, have recently recorded a session for Paul Jones Radio 2 show and produced an excellent CD. Storm Warning, just get better every time I see them and tonight was no exception. With a lovely varied set list which included original material as well as numbers written by Peter Green, JB Lenoir, Robben Ford, there was something for just about everyone.

Stuart ‘Son’ Maxwell has a great voice that really does justice to the material and also plays a mean harp, none more so that when he picked up his 12 hole C Marine Band harp on the wonderfully moody ‘Whisky Blues’. Another slow blues was the glorious ‘Nothin But Smoke’, a wonderful song of betrayal which saw Stuart using echo on his harp microphone to great vocal effect.

Storm Warning is blessed with an excellent guitarist in Bob ‘Mad Dog’ Moore, a man who is not given to flashy displays of digital dexterity but rather lets his guitar sing beautifully. Keyboard player, Ian Salisbury alternates between piano & Hammond to great effect breaking into passionate solos such as in “Talk to Your Daughter” which saw Stuart and Derek (White the bass player) clapping along and formation dancing go-go girl style! Having mentioned every other member of the band it would be victimisation not to give a credit to Roger Willis on drums whose playing was always spot on for the number, whether it was a laid back jazzy beat or full on rocking mayhem such as the wonderfully evocative ‘Ballad of 64’.

Two encores were called for, the first being a great instrumental and the second being the gorgeous ‘She Moves Me’, one of my favourites. A cracking evening with this excellent band who are well worth catching if they play near you.

Ashwyn Smyth