They started with “T-Bone Shuffle” followed by a lovely Piano solo in “Cry For Me baby”.  Chris switched from his telecaster to a beautiful Tobacco Sunburst Gibson 335 for duty on Peter Green’s “Merry Go-Round”. Following on was “Born Under A Bad Sign” with both guitarists making a great sound ttogether. Other classic Blues songs in the set included “Long Grey Mare” given a funky arrangement and a brilliantly delivered version of Gary Moore’s “Still Got the Blues” with a guitar tone singing as sweet as Gary Moore.  “Sweet Home Chicago”  included a very loud and encouraging sing-a-long from the audience and the guitarists were now matching up a 335 with a Tele to great effect. They finished with a couple of fast paced versions of “Looking Back” and Big Joe Williams’s “Baby, Please Don’t Go”.

So far the event had produce some good blues but the audience were waiting for some great rocking R&B from the masters of the genre. The house lights dimmed and on with a bang came Dr. Feelgood and they went straight into “She Does It Right”.  The band these days are: Robert Kane - Vocals & Harmonica, Steve Walwyn - Guitar, Phil Mitchell - Bass Guitar and Kevin Morris - Drums. The set contains all the favourites and expertly played they are too: “Roxette”, “Back In The Night”, ”Go Back Home”, “Down To The Doctors” and of course “Milk & Alcohol”. All of which were greatly enjoyed by the audience. In the middle of the set, they did a great slow number called “Down By The Jetty Blues”. The whole band has a stage presence and great showmanship and is able to keep the visual aspect of the show active by moving around the stage in sympathy with each other.

Robert Kane - Dr Feelgood

Steve Walwyn

As this song progressed each member disappeared from the stage to leave Steve performing a dazzling Guitar solo, after which the audience erupted into applause. At this point the stage lights failed, but undeterred our trusty guitar slinger played on, the rest of the band came back and made valiant attempts to play by the lights in the auditorium. With the stage lights restored in double quick time, they made it back to a slow blues after a real blues thrash section. The set closed with “Give Me One More Shot”, but we had them back for an encore of “Mad Man Blues” into which Robert incorporated a great harmonica solo in a rendition of “Stone Fox Chase” (Old Grey Whistle Test signature tune) and Bonie Moronie/Tequila. What a cracking close to the first night of the Festival.

Saturday 11th March

On the Saturday, in the afternoon Robin Bibi did a short set and then ran a Jam session. It was nice to see the young and older seasoned musicians getting in on the act and playing the blues. 11 year old Nick White played harmonica on "Red House" and then played guitar with a new blues rock band called The Code (www.the-code.co.uk ) led by local guitarist Colin McHugh and his son Sean. Also mentioned must go to young guitarist Callum Mangold- Jackson who played with his Dad Tim for the first time at Tring. Two families also got up and played some fine blues - The Thwaites and Izods. There were many more jammers and sorry for not giving everyone a mention but they all contributed to a great afternoon.

On this year's side stage, Del Bromhan (guitarist with Stray) did a short amplified acoustic set accompanying himself with amplified footstomping. He had fun with the audience with comments and stories to link the songs together. Some classics were there, “Rambling On My Mind”, Big Bill Broonzy’s “Careless Love” and to finish with John Lee Hooker’s “In The Mood”. We also heard some delightful slide guitar work on Del’s title track to his CD “Devil’s Highway”.

Roadhouse took to the main stage and due to a skiing incident the regular guitarist was replace by Danny Gwillim and augmented with Fred Schmidt on sax. The band tore into “Blues Highway” which gave all the guitarists and the Sax player a chance for some great soloing. A new rocking track “White Water”, from the forthcoming CD “Broken Land”, followed. During the set we also got their “radio” hit “Voodo Queen” and a nice slow broody bluesy style version of “Slip Away”. The mainstay of the band are Gary Boner - guitar & vocals, Bill Hobley - Bass and Roger Hunt - Drums. Mandi G and Fiona McElroy  added vocals, and tonight Mandi led the way on Sonny Boy’s “Help Me”. Finishing 3 ½ mins early they squeezed in a rocking “Telling Lies”.

Back to the side stage and there was Del Bromhan once more to entertain with, amongst others, “Ain’t Love A Wonderful Thing” and “Slave.

Big Dez, all the way from Paris (France) via Austin (Texas) was next. They play big festivals across Europe and this really was a double headliner with Paul lamb & the King snakes. With Phil Fernandez on vocal &  guitar, Bala Pradal on organ and  piano, Marc Schaeller playing some fine harp and an excellent rhythm section in Lamine Guerfi on bass and Stephane Minana on drums. The gauntlet was thrown down right from the start as the band played a selection of tracks from their most recent CD “Night After Night” kicking off with “#2” followed by “Junk Tour”, “Beautician Blues” and the oh so funky “Suspicion”, a selection which served to demonstrate the band’s breadth of skill and material. Big Dez (Phil) is a frontman who commands the stage and is a smiling larger than life musician who plays some wonderful blues licks paying homage to Albert Collins and Albert King along the way. Unlike so many “frontmen” Dez really connects with and draws in the audience and the band really rocked the theatre as their set continued with tracks from “Sail on Blues” the band’s previous CD including “Lets Have Some Fun” and, the high spot for me, a great take on “One Way Ticket” which saw Big Dez teasing the audience by playing an oh so quiet guitar solo which hushed the audience before suddenly whacking up the volume and then quietening down. The audience were enraptured and hung on his every note as Dez played them like a game fish which he had hooked but did not want to land yet! Particular mention must also be made of Bala’s excellent piano & organ solos. At the end of their set, the audience would not let them go and so they returned for a well received, (& deserved) encore with the title track of their latest CD.

Big Dez

Whilst the stage crew got to work to change over the bands Bob & Norm from GTFM 106.9’s Monday Night Blues show www.gtfm.co.uk  played tracks on CD.  Paul Lamb & The King Snakes took to the stage stage and they were ready to rock the joint. The band are: Paul Lamb - harmonica & vocals, Chad Strentz - rhythm guitar (Telecaster) & vocals, Rod Demick - bass (Upright) & vocals,  Raul de Pedro Marinero - guitar (Gibson 335) and Sonny Below - drums. Seasoned musician one and all with great showmanship and a real desire to get the audience involved from the start. First up was the title track from the new CD “I’m On A Roll” which went rapidly into a live show favourite “More Than Alright”.

They then played a slow blues, “The Things I Used To Do” and later in the set “Midnight Hour”. “Baby, Please Don’t Go” got an airing as did one of Chad’s songs “Far Far Away” also from the new CD. Paul Lamb is a big fan of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and in tribute they did the “Get Down Song”, where the entire band and the audience are coerced into getting down on the floor. A medley of C. C. Rider and Catfish followed and they ended the set with another live favourite “She’s Crazy”. This was not enough for the enthusiastic audience and we got them back for a rousing rendition of “Got My Mojo Working”. What a great finale to the events of Saturday.

Sunday is usually a far more relaxed day at Tring. Del Bromham  held an electric guitar demo showing different electric guitar styles and chatting about his influences and his technique and use of guitar pedals. Storm Warning’s Son Maxwell held several harmonica workshop which were all well attended. During the day Papa George did a solo set and a acoustic guitar workshop. Over the years Papa George has become an extremely good acoustic player on the National Steel and plays with real passion and soul. Heis so laid back and talks to the audience as if they are all friends. A nice surprise was a guitar demonstration from Little Toby Walker, who had arrived, in good time for his evening performance. He showed his guitar skills which was a taster of what was to come later in the evening and held a Q & A session. There was also a CDs to buy as well as guitars, basses, amps and accessories.

Sunday evening continued with two excellent acoustic sets with local guitarist David Bristow opening playing mainly his own material in what one member of the audience succinctly defined as a pre war blues style augmented by collarless shirt and braces of the period”! However, the song that stood out for me was a glorious version of “What a Wonderful World”, a song forever associated with Louis Armstrong. The climax of Sunday, and for many, of the whole weekend, was a simply superb set from the stunning Little Toby Walker, nearing the end of his brief UK tour promoting his CD, “Toby Walker plays well with others”. The set opened with Toby appearing on stage and, clapping his hands and singing gospel style, getting the audience to join in to get things off to a great start.

Toby is such a wonderful live performer, he links his songs with great anecdotes or explanations, effortlessly mixing his own original material with great covers, blending humour with pathos, dazzling guitar picking with great vocals and tonight was no exception. The lyrics of the songs Toby performs are frequently both amusing and thought provoking, particular examples being “100 Real Good Reasons To Sing The Blues” (from the new CD), “What I Used To Do All Night”, a song that hits home with your reviewer, and “Weak Willed & Easily Led” which saw Toby encouraging the audience to join in the chorus. Toby’s instrumental prowess is always evident and he blew a mean harp on the very entertaining “Train to Memphis” but when he gets picking on the likes of “Hacksaw Rag/Cinncinnati Flow Rag”, two numbers which effortlessly morph together, the auditorium is filled with the sound of jaws thudding to the floor as Toby’s fingers fly. Contrast this with the achingly beautiful arrangement of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, played Toby style during which you could have heard a pin drop.

Needless to say, this penultimate gig on his all to short UK tour left the audience utterly captivated and knocked out by a performer who just gets better every time. What a way to finish the fourth very successful Tring Blues Festival 2006. Roll on 2007

My thanks goes to all those who helped including The Tring Festival Company who run The Court Theatre at Pendley and those who played and came to the event as without a great audience the annual Tring Blues Festival wouldn't happen. see you all again in 2007. One more mention goes to my wife Alison who gives me great support and help over the months leading up to the festival and over the weekend.

Alison White