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PLAYING OUT LOUD!
ARTICLES
Emma Johnson. Preview by Peter Ashton.
 Emma
Johnson, who plays a concert at Southampton’s Turner Sims Concert Hall
on Thursday January 13, is one of the few clarinettists to have established a
busy international career as a soloist. Very popular in the UK, she also
performs in Europe, the USA, the Far East, Africa and Australia.
Emma began to study the clarinet at the age of nine. Her career took off In
1984 when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. In 1991
she was a winner of the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York. She had
originally studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge University.
and was recently the first woman to be awarded an honorary fellowship there.
Emma, who has given masterclasses all over the world and was a visiting
professor at the Royal College of Music, was also honoured with an MBE in 1996.
Emma has also appeared with many leading orchestras including the London
Symphony, The Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the English Chamber
Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Halle, the Polish Chamber Orchestra,
the
Tokyo Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony and the Netherlands Philharmonic in
repertoire which includes over forty different concertos.
Emma is also in demand as a recitalist and chamber musician, collaborating
with quartets such as the Takacs and Lindsay. She is director of her own
chamber ensemble, 'Emma Johnson and Friends', a versatile wind and string group
which recently recorded the Mozart and Weber Clarinet Quintets for ASV. Emma
is now an exclusive recording artist with Universal Classics & Jazz. Prior to
that she was signed by ASV at the age of eighteen and recorded extensively
for them, selling well over a quarter of a million discs worldwide.
As well as the traditional repertoire, Emma takes an interest in
contemporary composers. Her recording of Michael Berkeley's challenging Clarinet
Concerto received widespread critical acclaim. John Dankworth has written
several
jazz-inspired works for Emma including a clarinet concerto premiered at the
Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Her concert at Turner Sims Concert Hall on Southampton University campus
features John Lenehan on piano. Titled ‘An Evening with Emma Johnson’ it
will demonstrate her versatility as she interprets the classical music of
Chopin,
Schumann and Saint-Saens,
but also the contemporary music of Enrico Morricone, the classic jazz of
Scott Joplin and the timeless music of George Gershwin.
Tickets are £15 via the box office on 02380 595151.
Aynsley Lister. Preview by Peter
Ashton.
 There’s
a great blues-rock double header at The Brook in Southampton on January 22 when
Aynsley Lister and his band are joined by the Ian Parker Band for
what promises to be a stonking Saturday nighter.
Aynsley has built a reputation as the enfant terrible of British blues,
picking up the guitar at the age of eight and playing his first gig at thirteen.
One year later on a family trip to San Francisco, he was jamming with a band
supporting Cocoa Montoya at 'Lou’s Bar' on Pier 49. Brought up on his
father’s record collection, he had learned to play by ear by strumming along to
old
45s of Freddie King, John Mayall and Eric Clapton.
By the time he was eighteen, he had worked his way through various bands
and decided to form his own three-piece band when he also started singing and
writing his own material. The band decided to put out a couple of albums, the
second of which featured three of Aynsley’s self-penned numbers. It was these
that attracted the attention of Ruf Records’ chief Thomas Ruf, and in the
summer of 1998 they signed a deal.
Together with producer Jim Gaines, Aynsley went into the studio and
recorded his debut for the label including a duet with veteran bluesman Walter
Trout.
Released in Europe, Lister received critical acclaim and toured extensively
over the next two years, sharing stages with artists such as Buddy Guy, Robert
Cray and John Mayall.
With Europe firmly in hand, the next thing was to try for the US so in
2000, they decided to rework Lister’s first album by replacing five tracks with
new ones and re-recording what had now become firm favourites with Lister’s
fans. Alongside bigger and brassier re-workings of the debut album favourites
such
as ‘Soundman’ and Angel’O’Mine, sit the FM friendly title track and a
masterful stripped down version of Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’. Unfortunately,
‘Everything I Need’ never made it to the States but still caught the attention
of
the mainstream press with MOJO describing it as
“Exceptionally mature and exciting” and The Times simply saying -“Superb!”
Aynsley followed up in 2001 with a live album with the mystifying title
‘Supakev n Pilchards’ and three years later with ‘All Or Nothing’ which
demonstrated his musical progression and reflected his increasing interest in
other
musical genres, although he has always affirmed that he is a bluesman at heart.
Aynsley’s current band features teenager Sarah Jones on drums and James
Townend on bass.
Ian Parker served his apprenticeship on the European Blues/Rock circuit Ian
working alongside Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Peter Green and Walter
Trout. Walter Trout is a confirmed fan, describing Ian’s outfit as "The best
band I've seen in a decade - Ian's voice, feel and guitar technique are what
his contemporaries can only dream of!"
Ian’s more soulful vocal style should make for a good contrast with headliner
Aynsley. His music also takes in a touch of roots, funk, jazz and gospel.
Tickets for the gig are £9 through 02380 555366 or see
www.the-brook.com.
Call Up The Groups. Preview by Peter Ashton
 ‘Call
Up The Groups’ is back on the road bringing together 60s acts The Barron
Knights, The Tremeloes, The Fortunes and Marmalade. The package tour calls at
The Anvil in Basingstoke on Thursday January 20 and will be touching down at
other venues in the South over the subsequent few months.
Call Up The Groups not only features the hits of each act individually but also
sees the four drummers singing a 60s harmony classic and the four guitarists
joining for a guitar quartet. Definitely not your average 60s package show!
As for the hits, well there are dozens of them - from the pop parody medleys of
The Barron Knights like Call Up The Groups and Pop Go The Workers to the more
melodic refrains of the other three bands. The Tremeloes had 7 Top Ten hits in a
four year spell from 1967 including the No 1 Silence Is Golden, Here Comes My
Baby and Suddenly
You Love Me. The Fortunes scored with a quartet of Top Ten hits - You’ve Got
Your Troubles, Here It Comes Again, Freedom Come Freedom Go and Storm In A
Teacup,
while Scottish band Marmalade scored with the chart-topping Beatles cover Ob-La-Di
Ob-La-Da, Baby Make It Soon, Reflections of My Life and several more.
Tickets for what promises to be a mass singalong are £16 via 01256 844244.
See The Anvil website
www.theanvil.org.uk for the complete lineup through to April which
also includes visits from Errol Brown, Fairport Convention, The Big Chris Barber
Band, Tom Paxton, Engelbert Humperdinck and The Solid Silver 60s Show.
David Kitt. Preview by Peter Ashton
 Young
Irishman David Kitt whose voice has been likened to the late Nick Drake
makes an appearance at Portsmouth’s Wedgewood Rooms later this month. David
has made four albums so far, Square 1, The Big Romance, Small Moments and his
latest, The Black and Red Notebook, which is an album containing one of his
own songs and nine covers. He has been touted as “the next big thing” for
several years now, and maybe the new album will finally make it happen for him.
The Black And Red Notebook was released in the UK last October on David’s
own label Dublin Discs distributed by Rough Trade. It's an album of borrowed
classics including Magnolia by JJ Cale, Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth and Going
In A Field by Ivor Cutler.
As David explains on his website: “This is a collection of songs I began
working on in January 2004. The idea was to get under the surface of other
people’s songs and to live and breathe them as if I’d written them myself. This,
I hoped, would create a lot of new music. Only one song from the original
list made it on the record and that’s ‘Haunt Me’ by Jape. I tried songs by The
Velvet Underground, Elizabeth Cotton, The Band, Kraftwerk, New Order, Joy
Division, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Mississippi, John Hurt, Alton Ellis, George
McRae, Yo la Tengo, Teenage Fanclub, Jackie Wilson, Ash, The Stooges, The La’s,
the list goes on and on. I had all the songs in the world to choose from but
it was so hard to find ones I could do something with. Anything that made it
on had to be sufficiently different from the original to merit release but it
also had to return some of the spirit of the original as I had perceived it.”
He continues: “Most of the songs on the record are ones I first got to know
in my teens when music really meant the world to me. This wasn’t a conscious
thing, it just worked out that way. Back then you saved up, chose carefully
and squeezed everything you could out of every record you bought. There’s too
much music in my life nowadays. We travelled twice to Kerry to record and I’d
like to thank all the people in Dingle who were so helpful and generous to us.
We ran out of weed at one point and two days later we had several varieties to
choose from. There is greater attention to detail in this album than on any
of my previous records, and not having to watch the clock, as you often do in
a studio, allowed for this. It is also a very personal record as most of these
songs have been my friends for many years now and it was good hanging out with them for a while.”
Tickets for the Wedgewood Rooms gig on Thursday January 27 are £7 via the
Box Office on 023 9286 3911. Doors open 8pm and there will be a support act.
Jive Aces. Preview by Peter Ashton
 Fancy
shaking off the seasonal sloth with an invigorating musical experience?
Better join the Jive Aces at Bullfrog Blues Club in The Albert Bar on Southsea’s
South Parade Pier on Thursday January 13.
The Jive Aces are the UK’s premier exponents of Jump Jive, which can best be
described as a high-energy mixture of R & B, swing, rock'n'roll, boogie
woogie and blues. Since forming in 1989 this highly professional six piece group
have starred on TV, radio, festivals, theatres, and numerous high profile events
throughout Britain, Europe and the United States.
Their colourful and spectacular stage show combines a mixture of fresh
arrangements of classics from the 1940s/1950s jive era with songs made famous by
such greats as Louis Jordan, Cab "Minnie the Moocher" Calloway and Louis Prima -
along with their own superb original jive-style numbers.
The Jive Aces have played at countless major events including The Lord Mayor of
London’s Spectacular, Amnesty International shows, The Royal Ballet's 50th
anniversary and numerous others. Festival appearances include the City of
London, Chichester, Cork, Cheltenham, Lyme Regis, Hemsby Rock 'n' Roll, and
Borders Jazz just to name a few.
They are also hugely popular further afield, having played to tens of thousands
in Norway, France, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, The
Caribbean, and the USA, most notably as part of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic
celebrations.
They have appeared on TV from BBC1 to Monte Carlo to South America as well as
dozens of radio appearances. The Jive Aces have performed alongside many of the
top names in the business, stars as diverse as John Travolta, The Count Basie
Orchestra, Fairport Convention, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and Buddy Greco. Fans
in Hampshire who saw them last year at the Concorde Club in Eastleigh and
Winchester Theatre Royal will no doubt want to get along to Southsea on January
13. Tickets are available through 02392 43626.
Jim Diamond and Snake Davis. Report by Peter Ashton
 Fareham’s
Ashcroft Arts Centre plays host to the smallest soul band in the world - Jim
Diamond and Snake Davis - on Saturday January 29. Jim is best known as the
singer and composer of the million-selling hits I Won’t Let You Down,Shoulda
Known Better and Hi Ho Silver, while saxophonist Snake has worked with everyone
from Paul McCartney, Cher, George Michael, Dusty Springfield, James
Brown and Smokey Robinson.
Born and raised in Glasgow, Jim Diamond joined his first band at the age of 15,
signing to Arista Records with his own band Bandit seven years later.
From there he served his apprenticeship with the “Godfather of British Blues”,
Alexis Korner. After a couple of great learning years he moved on to Los
Angeles, forming the band Slick Diamond with Earl Slick and Carmine Apice. He
broadened his horizons further whilst in the States, producing with Carmine and
writing with Michel Legrand.
Returning to the UK in the early 1980s, Jim met up with Tony Hymas and Simon
Phillips from the Jeff Beck Band and formed PhD. The next few years saw the
success of his multi-million selling number 1 hits, an Ivor Novello award for
Best Single for Shoulda Known Better, and the commissioning of the theme tune
for ITV’s “Boon” series Hi Ho Silver in 1986.
During the 1990s Jim returned to his favourite style of music - blues/soul and
folk. He formed The Blue Shoes soon after the release of Jim Diamond The Album
and they have been touring ever since, pulling big crowds all over the country.
As for Snake Davis, let’s just say he’s got the musicians’ dream CV. In addition
to working with the artists named above he has also been resident saxophonist on
"Tonight With Jonathon Ross" and also presented a saxophone "Masterclass"
programme for ITV. He has also played on records or toured with M-People, Lisa
Stansfield, Ray Charles, Jamiroquai, Tom Jones, Culture Club, Hamish Stuart,
Tina Turner, Paul Hardcastle, Take That, N-Trance, Kylie Minogue,Swing Out
Sister, Dave Stewart, Paul Young, Mark Morrison, Pet-Shop Boys, Soul11Soul,
Robert Palmer, Tanita Tikaram, Motorhead, Primal Scream, Spice Girls and Boy
George. Snake has also played live with M-People, Eurythmics, Edwin Starr, The
Snake Davis Band, Rose Royce, Sister Sledge, Tavares, Odyssey, The Three
Degrees, The Real Thing, Mary Wells, Ruby Turner, Martha Reeves, Eddie Holman,
Popcorn Wylie, Chuck Jackson and Syreeta. Nuff said!
Tickets for the gig at Ashcroft Arts Centre are £9 via 01329 310600.
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Emma Johnson Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton Thurs January 13
Aynsley Lister
The Brook, Southampton January 22
Call Up the Groups The Anvil, Basingstoke
Thurs January 20
David Kitt Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Thurs January 27
Jive Aces
The Albert Bar, Southsea
Thurs January 13
Jim Diamond & Snake Davis Ashcroft Centre, Fareham
Sat January 29 |
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