Real Gone - talking the Blues

Real Gone - talking the Blues

She’s cute, she can play guitar, she’s got a voice like Sheryl Crow, and she channels Stevie Ray Vaughan. What’s not to like? So this is the Ally Venable Band with the title track of her 2023 album, Real Gone.

I’ve always been in the Blues/Rock camp, ever since I was a young teen (c. 1965). It drove me to save up for my first guitar: £15 with a generous subsidy from my father.

In the sixties, Blues for me was not scratchy acoustic songs from the impoverished black balladeers of the Delta; it was the reinvention of the genre in the hands of Clapton, Page and Hendrix; the power of the sixties counterculture.

Today, fifty years later, Joe Bonamassa may be every bit as technically fluent as the old masters, but Blues in the 2020s is adrift. Rooted neither in hardship nor in rebellion, the modern blues has turned inward: angst about 'preserving the tradition' and 'purity'.

I sometimes listen to new bands like the Zac Schulze Gang.

I’m super-impressed by the energy, the technical and performing skill. But apart from the classic covers (video) most of the new songs are not up to much - they feel disconnected from the zeitgeist.

What would it look like, a Blues which authentically expressed the angst and aspirations of today? Beth Hart, a woman of the demi-monde, comes to mind, and the blue-collar desperation of Walter Trout; the authentic, personal expression of long, hard lives lived at the sharp end.

But as a channel for the disaffected youth?

Not yet.

Our Joni Mitchell Musical Experience in Tewkesbury

Paul Zervas, Katherine Pepper and band

Our Musical Experience in Tewkesbury

On Friday, July 25th, 2025, we drove up to Tewkesbury to hear Zervas and Pepper, a musical duo from Cardiff, performing This Flight Tonight: The Songs of Joni Mitchell.

Clare has been a lifelong fan of Joni Mitchell, having seen her only once—in London, when Clare was in her early twenties. So this concert, a birthday present, was a source of considerable excitement: Paul Zervas and Kathryn Pepper channelling the spirit and sound of Mitchell’s music. It was, of course, a triumph.

Kathryn Pepper both looks and sounds uncannily like the young Joni and Paul Zervas bears a striking resemblance to James Taylor - thematically appropriate given that Joni and James were romantically entangled once upon a time. Zervas and Pepper, as it happens, are also a couple.

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They were joined by a talented backing band for those Joni numbers that demanded it. What impressed me particularly—beyond the expected classics from Blue and other early albums—was their inclusion of tracks from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, a more sophisticated and less immediately accessible album. Kathryn Pepper, in particular, seemed to revel in performing those songs.

The concert took place at the Roses Theatre. Afterwards, we returned to our hotel—the Tudor House Hotel—only to find ourselves serendipitously caught up in Tewkesbury Live, a weekend event we had only vaguely clocked beforehand. Every pub and hotel in town, it seemed, was hosting blues and rock bands. We wandered into the bar, got ourselves drinks, and sat outside in the warm evening, listening to a three-piece band, The Desperados UK, blasting out soft rock standards at a volume that could probably be picked up in Gloucester.

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Numbers included Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, and Bryan Adams’s Summer of ’69. Loud, familiar, and utterly enjoyable - an excellent end to the evening.

Saturday morning brought a faintly less euphoric moment. When I returned to the car park, I discovered that my parking ticket had slipped off the dashboard overnight, and the local enforcement officer - unmoved by such technicalities - had left a £25/£50 fixed penalty notice on the windscreen. I have, of course, appealed, and we shall see what justice (if any) prevails. (Good news: my appeal was successful!).

Nonetheless, the evening in Tewkesbury - musical, unexpected, and full of cheerful people - was not in any way diminished.

The Walter Trout Band at Warwick Arts Centre

Walter Trout with the guitar on the left

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The Walter Trout Band at the Warwick Arts Centre

Like Joni Mitchell, Walter Trout has had an eventful life and has honestly and authentically distilled it into his music. It seems he mostly lives to be on the road: at 74 years of age, he freely claims to be 'in the December of my life'.

Tuesday night Clare and I saw the Walter Trout Band at the Warwick Arts Centre. The support act on first was Cam Cole - a one-man band, though he did have an assistant in tow. He played a half-hour set, followed by a short intermission. Then, around half-past eight, Walter Trout and his band took the stage and played for a good ninety minutes, which passed remarkably quickly.

Cam Cole struck me as a very talented performer. His assistant, Alfie - rather androgynous in appearance - added to the visual theatre. Together, they delivered a loud, foot-stomping blues set, marked by ferocious vocals and a raw, unfiltered energy. Both looked like travelling folk, and as it turns out, they are - living a nomadic lifestyle in a converted vehicle. The top hat, the colourful, gypsyish clothing - it’s all part of the aesthetic.

That said, the performance, while undeniably high-energy, suffered slightly from repetition and a less-than-ideal sound system which filtered out all subtlety - a flaw that also affected Trout’s set later on.

Walter Trout’s performance was, once again, loud and atmospheric, though not without its limitations. The song choices were heavily weighted toward the straight-down-the-line electric blues - energetic, yes, but lacking melodic variation. Almost every number was a burner, with little respite. I counted only one slower piece, a tribute to John Mayall - though in Walter Trout's hands the song has done duty as an homage to other departed bluesmen too. That would be: 'Say Goodbye to the Blues'.

It’s a shame, really. Trout has more lyrical material in his back catalogue that might have added texture to the set. But he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, as did the band - veterans all, with clear camaraderie and mutual respect. Each had a brief moment in the spotlight - a nice touch.

One can see why Walter Trout remains something of a cult figure. He makes no concessions to fashion or commercial polish. On stage (see the picture above) he appeared in old jeans and a caftan-style shirt - shambolic, yes, but with real presence. The focus was entirely on the music, and we, the fans, clearly appreciated that.

In a certain sense, Walter Trout isn't giving a performance, a show, at all. He's just sharing a fun jam-session with his mates.

Here's Clare in the audience as the theatre fills up

The venue was comfortably full - perhaps 450 people, I’d guess (the capacity is 570). The demographic was striking: not unlike a parish gathering, with perhaps 95% of the audience over sixty. One wonders what’s become of the blues.

It flourished in the ’60s and ’70s - clearly when most of the audience came of age - and has since withered into a niche. The traditional electric blues, rooted in the Delta and the Mississippi, seems largely bypassed by the younger crowd. But perhaps, as with so much else, it’s simply waiting for its time to come again.