Will West, May 3, 2007

Will has one of the most distinctive voices around, who always has other vocalists (and would-be vocalists) spelbound and so it was fitting that he was our guest spotlight artist for the night.

Will reminds me of those in the Kelly Joe Phelps genre giving us self penned songs with feeling and depth even on those songs where he is only using a couple of the strings.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the song list I had written down, but recall one called 'Black Moon' which I specifically liked. 

Will is currently putting together a few songs for recording which may be available soon hopefully.

Keep an eye out for him as he is well worth a listen.

 Thursday 10th May 2007

I hadn't chosen a spotlight artist for this week, so I took a few photos of a selection of the players during the buskers which we started off a bit earlier @ around 8:35 with a couple of songs from me. About bloody time too!

If you like a selection of music rather than just the same old stuff, tonight would have been right up your street. There was a great atmosphere as usual, and many of the buskers got up and gave a bit of backing to their friends on stage.

Songs we heard included All along the Watchtower, (Hendrix) Hurt, (Johny Cash), Sunshine of your love, (Cream), with a bit of  Snow Patrol, Cranberries, Simon & Garfunkel and Whitesnake for good measure.

Michael Hibbert

 17th May 2007

Michael is well known at the Tavern and like Will West who did the spotlight at the beginning of the month, he has a fantastically distinctive voice, very much on the lines of Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame. Obviously, we had a few of Cornells songs featured within the set -  'Black Hole Sun', 'Can't Change Me', 'You Know My Name' (a recent James Bond film theme song) and 'I am the Highway' were the ones I picked up on.

As well as the obligitory Chris Cornell songs, Mick does plenty others too. We heard  the Foo Fighters 'My Hero', Del Amitri's 'Might as well be you' & 'Tell Her This' (which got me the chance to do a bit of backing vocals :) a Pearl Jam song and a self penned song too. Mick finished off the night wth 'Blackberry Way (a Move song from the 60's) and Paul McCartneys 'Blackbird'.

It just doesn't get much better.

 Wor Den - - 31st May 2007

 Dennis is one lifes good guys  - never a bad word about anyone, just gets up and does his stuff when needed without a whinge & tonight was his chance to show us his stuff. Den is an out and out blues man and tonight he didn't let us down. 'Smokestack Lightnin', 'Red House', 'Don't turn me from your door', 'Dust my broom', were the classics he gave us along with his versions of Dylans 'Knocking on Heavens door' and 'She belongs to me'.

 Den also gave us a couple of his own songs, 'Noon Train' which I absolutly love to hear and'Water into Wine' which always gets Steve Hill up on the electric when Dennis plays it. This is great, as Steve is a genuine blues player and you can tell he really 'feels' what he plays. He always adds that bit extra to any set - especially if there are any blues songs in the set. I got the chance to play a bit of harp too - can't be bad.

One of the great things about Buskers night at the Tavern is the way things progress through the night. Jonny helped Den with a bit of lead guitar, Steve gave Den some backup too and later Steve gave Jonny backing on one of his songs. The next step was for Derek and Dave to get up andfor Jonny to fill in for them too. Another brilliant night which was finished off with the man who started the night - Den, with a little more of his magic.