BiGiAM

Live Review

Jo Harman and Company – New Crawdaddy Club, Essex – Thursday 7th February 2013

Rising star Jo Harman and her ‘Company’, rolled into town tonight at Essex’s premier Blues Club, The New Crawdaddy. What was on evidence was a pool of outstanding talent that just wiped the floor.
Jo has a unique voice, very identifiable, very soulful, and verging on gospel at times, even she made reference to the influence. Then there’s her band . . . Guitar (Mike Davies)
, Keys (Steve Watts), Bass (Andy Tolman) and Drums (Martin Johnson). These guys deserve just as much credit as Jo herself, well nearly, even when its’ just guitar and voice, or full on, heads down, wipe out!
Each song, albeit original or subtle cover, has the ‘Harman Effect’, well crafted, full of emotion, plenty of light and shade and that added ‘Soul/Blues Funk’ that, from where I sit, essential
to keep 100% attention. From this musicians point of view there’s a lovely controlled emotion, Jo
and the band can de-clutter the notes, being frugal and economic with them, even with those that they don’t play!

We were treated with songs from past CD’s ‘Live at the Hideaway’ and the EP, but also with tasters from her forthcoming studio release ‘Dirt On My Tongue’. On tonight’s showing the Live ‘Hideaway’ CD is one aspect of Jo’s bow, but the studio album will, I’m sure, give another viewpoint. Live, Harman is a potent animal, balancing the song selection beautifully with just enough variety.

Tonight’s audience at Essex’s premier blues club The Crawdaddy, are not always open to such
diverse song selection, some songs very far from their comfort zone of the Blues, but tonight they were captivated, such is the appeal of Ms Harman and her band. Even a Bobby Bland song, made more famous by mane haired rocker David Coverdale – “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City” was given the H & Co treatment. Even the normal, very staid Crawdaddions couldn’t resist this version.

The tide has certainly turned and Jo Harman is riding the crest of a wave. Very rare, nee never, does an artiste make two appearances at this venue in one year, but there’s a buzz doing the rounds that this might be the case, so if she does, fail not to catch her. If you missed her, then buy the audio formats, but . . .

Fail not to catch Jo Harman and her band, anywhere, for that matter!

Thanks to www.barebonesboogieband.com