Last weekend I spent a wonderful evening in North London with my best mate watching my favourite movie of all time; Lord of the rings, accompanied by an array of fruity cocktails and a great host of orcs and men and elves.
A little bleary eyed and still dreaming of Aragon I woke on Sunday morning to a barrage of text messages sent by my good friend from across the pond, the Blues artist Joe Bonamassa.
Rubbing the sleep away from my eyes I sat up straight and read the message again and again. "Sandi, I've lost my voice and can't sing. Can you get yourself on a plane to France in about 3 hours and do my shows with me next week?"
At first I thought it was a joke! But after the 8th message I realised he was deadly serious! Here I was slightly hung over and miles from home trying to figure out whether it was humanly possible to get myself on the last flight out of Gatwick, arrive, rehearse and learn the set before the day was over?
Of course I can!! This is so rock'n'roll, I’m not going to miss this opportunity for anything!
So literally within 6 hours of that text message I was perched on the edge of a big bed in a hotel room in Nice learning all sorts of blues numbers from Clapton, to BB King to Bonamassa himself!
The first show we played was the Nice Blues and Jazz festival, which was an absolute killer gig as we got to support and then watch the King of Blues himself, BB King accompanied as always by "Lucille".
The festival was a great success and it was such a blast singing the blues alongside an artist as talented as Joe Bonamassa. We departed the beautiful French Riviera and headed off for the first of a few dates in Germany and as I clambered on the tour bus ‘quell suprise’, I realised I was the only girl in this motley crew, the other 12 shared a different chromosome from moi!
Like a proper Thomboy though I threw myself into the macho melee’ and was swearing, scratching and swigging beers with my peers in no time. Only clue I left as to my fem I.D was the classic toilet seat giveaway and my soap bag being bigger than a standard man size suitcase! We ended the week with a storming set in Stuttgart supporting the legendary Steve Winwood, those of you thinking ‘before my time’ might remember the song "Higher Love" which was a huge hit worldwide for Steve back in the mid eighties.
Over the course of that week I noticed a distinct lack of girls at the gigs. Women peppered the audience, few worked behind the scenes and I was the only girl working the stage! It gave me cause to question this unbalanced male/female ratio, to address it and perhaps one day challenge it. The music industry, especially the Blues world is still very much a ‘’Man's world’’ as James Brown used to declare, but with some shrewd foresight the Godfather followed up that line with ‘’but it wouldn’t be nothing without woman’’.
And so, to that end I've been inspired to become the first "chick" that can play the blues like Clapton, BB, Bonamassa, Albert King and all the other great guitarists!
I've already bought myself a 6 string Gibson Les Paul so now I’m just waiting for a rainy day and a general down in the dumps disposition to get me in the mood and feeling kinda blue!
I had such a wonderful time out on the road with Joe and his crew and I'm certain that our collaborative efforts will not end there so watch this space!
