After a couple of false starts/cancellations trying to see Buffalo Nichols I wasn’t going to let the train strike stop me from going to this show. So a drive and the long tube journey from south to north London was in order for this show at my favourite small London venue, the Lexington.
Tonight is the guitar virtuoso Buffalo Nichols who shifts between acoustic and electric effortlessly producing a sublime rootsy feel with some impressive slide work to boot. Nichols himself makes it clear that he is not the saviour of the blues and please don’t refer his music as blues but you are never quite sure throughout the night on how much you should believe what he says.
Whatever genre it is his sound really reminds me of the late Kelly Joe Phelps and his voice has the same timbre too. On top of his guitar sound he adds beats, speech recordings and drum loops to give his take of the blues a contemporary sound. He is joined on stage half way through by Patrick on drums who provides a solid beat to the more up tempo songs.
The set tonight is taken in equal measures form both of his albums and it was good to hear the new songs from ‘The Fatalist’ played tonight. The audience is a little quiet but that may just be down to the rapt attention of Nichols’ skills along the fret board.
It’s a fine sixty minutes and highlights for me included ‘The Difference’ and ‘Living Hell’. There are a couple of fine covers from Skip James and Zep too to flesh out the set.
Despite his protestations for me this was a perfect evening of the blues highlighting the roots origins of the genre.
Keep on roots rockin’ y’all