Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Errol Linton interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Errol Linton is a south London boy, with roots in Jamaica. His brand of ‘Brixton Blues’ music merges his Caribbean heritage with his love for the blues to create a distinctive reggae-infused form of blues.
Starting out busking on the streets of London, Errol was noticed by BBC Producer John Walters, who made a documentary about him. This led on to some airplay on BBC Radio. Errol built on this early success and has released a number of albums since the early 1990s. 
His two most recent albums have been released to critical acclaim, with the latest one, No Entry, recorded with a live feel.  


Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Links:
Errol's website:
http://errollinton.com/

Videos:
Documentary on Errol by BBC:
https://youtu.be/xQCaLPw0efo

Howlin’ For My Darlin’
https://youtu.be/B9OYyvqUIN8

Paul Jones BBC Blues Radio show:
https://youtu.be/fnYzCvAILbM

Busking on London Underground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG91oY8ogH0

Errol's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSp8y2HN77CmkYXZZI0V_9Q


Music:
Listen to Errol’s “Live In London” album here:
https://www.brassdogrecords.com/live-in-london-a

Chad Jackson remix of Rain In Your Life:
https://www.brassdogrecords.com/chad-jackson-remix


Harmonica in Jamaican music:
http://jamminjasounds.blogspot.com/2007/05/harmonica-in-jamaican-music.html


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

Errol Linton joins me on episode 31 of the podcast. Errol is a South London boy with roots in Jamaica. His brand, the Brixton Blues Music, merges his Caribbean heritage with his love for the blues to create a distinctive, reggae-infused form of the blues. Starting out busking on the streets of London, Errol was noticed by BBC producer John Walters, who made a documentary film about him. This led on to some airplay on BBC Radio. Errol built on this early success and has released a number of albums since the early 1990s. His two most recent albums have been released to critical acclaim, with the latest one, No Entry, recorded with a live feel. Hello, Errol Linton, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

How you doing, Neil?

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, you're a Londoner. You were born in Brixton. That's where you learnt your music. And you've got Jamaican parents, yeah? So you've got this kind of fusion between the blues and the Caribbean and the reggae music, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think from the very first time I really picked up a harmonica, I think I definitely kind of blew it in in this kind of skank rhythm. I've still got the tape at home somewhere, you know? Yeah, that was in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01:

At that stage, have you heard any harmonica at all, or did you just pick it up with the rhythms from the...

SPEAKER_00:

No, I haven't really heard any blues harmonica then, when I first got that harmonica. I mean, obviously, I knew Stevie Wonder, as you always say, and stuff like that, but it's only after you get it, you start playing, and you realise you've got so much harmonica on tape. It's quite a bit on a big youth album.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_00:

Sing along and sing a song I like it just like that

SPEAKER_01:

Sing along and sing a song I like it just like

SPEAKER_00:

that There's a lot of harmonica around

SPEAKER_01:

90 Dread, the

SPEAKER_00:

Bob Marley album

SPEAKER_01:

90 Dread,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, great. So yes, you grew up in Brixton around that area and the community there, lots of influences from sort of Caribbean music. And that's where you grew up with those rhythms. So what got you actually playing harmonica for the first time?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, not the first time I played a harmonica, but the first sort of music. I think my uncle might have had a harmonica. When I started playing, I sent some back to him. He left quite early to go back to Jamaica. One of the first brothers to go back. We were brought up a lot in a Christian Pentecostal church. Very small church. I remember going to near Oval. Not far from the cricket ground. Kennetons or Oval area. That was the first sort of musical here, which is almost like gospel Caribbean, really. Jamaican gospel, if you think, you know. So there's a film that was made in the 1970s called Pressure, yeah? And there's a clip in there. It's actually my church in Brixton, yeah? And you can actually see some members of my family, and you can actually hear the music, what would be played in church at that time. Before I was harmonica music, it would have been a friend who sold me a harmonica. And that kind of led up to stuff when friends did me tapes or went to the library to take some stuff and discovered double the record store of getting tapes at the time. So it was mainly tapes. And that was the early days with the blues.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I remember those days when you used to go to the library, get records out of the library and record them. It was a great day. It's not like that these days, is it?

SPEAKER_00:

I think you still kind of get records from the library, can't you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you got your first harmonica, like you say, off a friend, and then you started searching

SPEAKER_00:

out blues records. Yeah, because actually the first harmonica which I bought for my friend was, I think it was a tremolo harp. It wasn't actually a blues harp.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

So I was learning that, and then I decided to get a blues¶¶¶¶¶¶ That's what turned me on.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you quickly realise that the tremolo harmonica wasn't producing the sort of sounds that you were hearing?

SPEAKER_00:

No, definitely not. Now, tremolos are probably more like these shanties and bulky stuff, isn't it, really? You play on that. Yeah. That type of harmonica. I kind of played a kind of skank on it, though, like, you know? Yeah. That was there from the beginning, even though it didn't even cross my mind, if you know what I mean, but later, when you think about it. So that was always the influence there.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you remember any of those early records, any particular ones that grabbed you and you wanted to learn?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, God, there's loads. I mean, I had some Junior Wells. I had some Sonny Boy Williamson. And then Sonny Boy 1. Like I say, when it went to doorbells, I'd been listening to the 40s and 50s harmonicas. But when it went to doorbells, I found this tape. Yazoo's label. And it was harmonica blues from the 1920s and 30s.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So then I discovered, way back, I discovered people like Dee Ford, Bailey, Jay Bird, Coleman, innit? Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

People like that. Yeah, so... But, yeah, Sonny Terry, I love Sonny Terry, yeah. He was a big influence when I first started playing. Yeah, that's how I really first got to play the harmonica sort of stuff, which is just practising on your own at home, really, until one day my friend said to me, why don't you... Go busking. I thought, nah, I couldn't do that. No way, man. And then in the end, I tried it. I remember the first day I did it, I was busking down Green Park. And I approached this guy who's barefoot. And he had a French horn. He's playing. I said, excuse me, mate, where's the next pitch? He turned around and went, F. Oh, fuck! And I went... And I thought, oh, okay, this is how it is. They're

SPEAKER_01:

very protective of those spots, these buskers,

SPEAKER_00:

aren't they? Yeah, he was, but I got him back months later. I did the same thing to him when I got to know the ropes a bit. But I think I got nicked the first day, so it wasn't a great day, but it was more than what I was making if I went to labouring or stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01:

No, so that's, I mean, that's right. As you say, you started out your performances basically by going busking, which is,

SPEAKER_00:

you know, a great way to learn, yeah? Yeah, I mean, I was quite shy then, actually, because I remember the first, at least a year and a bit, I wore shades. That's how I was about playing there, just making up as I was going along. One day I was at Bond Street and some guy said to me, I think I was doing J.B. Hootoo, too. She's gone, he said that. hey man, you should do that muffin, you know, it sounds good. And that one guy just saying, yes, it sounds good. And I thought, well, all right then. And that's how I began to get the confidence to sing. And obviously through busking and you meet other guys there, you say, yeah, and you end up busking with them and the gigs start. So when I first started out, like I said, the guy that sold my harmonica was Tyrone Bocasun and he was playing drums at the time. I met Dave when I was busking, Dave Rose. And he played harmonica and he had tambourine on his foot. And he played a lot of kind of Woody Guthrie tunes, Sonny Terry tunes, Careless Love, a lot of the old stuff, you know. And then we ended up jamming together with Tyrone and we did a few gigs together, yeah. And the first one was the Trolley Stop. He spoke Newton. That was the first one we did, I think. And then later on I met Pete Smith. I got thrown out of the underground and I came up with a letter square. I was going through the square and then there was a guy there. I remember there was a choreo on his push bike standing there listening. This guy was playing some really nice, mean slide guitar. And that was Pete Smith. I said, do you mind if I join in? He said, yeah. So that was the first of another partnership with another guitarist. Because Dave was always a bit shy stage-wise. But Pete was more accomplished than he'd played in bands before and stuff. And, you know, we started doing gigs, not only local, but we started going further out, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that, you know, you starting out busking, it really shows a lot of people, they wonder how to, you know, play with other people and get out there and get playing. And I think you've got to get yourself out there playing, haven't you? Getting yourself heard, either going to, you know, jam sessions in pubs or like you did, you know, sort of busking. And that's how you meet people, yeah. So it's really interesting to hear that. That's how you really progress from busking, which is, you know, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I did. Yeah, that's the way I started, really. I mean, apart from just gaming at Hunter Records. I mean, I loved music in school and stuff, but I was never really... It was quite big classes in school, and a lot of fear and a lot of boredom. But I knew a lot of the... A lot of my friends were in the reggae bands after, so I'd be hanging around and listen to them, piano and drum and bass. I knew the guys in the band, the school band. So I'd always be hanging around a bit, maybe press the piano a bit, but I never really into music. I was into music, but I never played it.

SPEAKER_01:

And when you were busking, sort of developing maybe your your craft when you were busking early on, these were all solo performances initially, as you say. Oh yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I played solo for ages, yeah. on my own, so I met Dave. Well, it wasn't ages, I suppose it was a couple of years or a year and a half.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm just wondering how that, you know, maybe how it develops your playing, do you think, playing

SPEAKER_00:

solo like that for a while? I think it's good for your rhythm. It's really good for your rhythm, I'd say, and timing. I used to clip my fingers a lot, timing, you know, but that got to the point where I got split on one side, and then I got split on the other side, so I kind of had a line, two lines going down, and I thought, oh, I've got to stop clicking my fingers, you know what I

SPEAKER_01:

mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So instead of clicking, well, I was clicking the staff of my feet, so I'd be holding my harp with one hand and clicking my finger to get the timing, but I had to give that up.

SPEAKER_01:

Were you trying to emulate some of the plays you mentioned, maybe like Sonny Terry, who, of course, did some

SPEAKER_00:

of the solo stuff? Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, yeah, I was trying to do stuff by them, yeah. All this make-up stuff, make-up

SPEAKER_01:

rhythms.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_00:

And I say, like, when I first started singing, yeah, that David Hutter tune, and then obviously that grew into Little Water tunes, to Blind Boy, Fuller, and Salty Terry, you know, them tunes.

SPEAKER_01:

Were you playing with any amplification when you were busking by yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

No, first of all, I never had an amplifier. First of all, I'd be playing the acoustic harmonica, so I tended to go for high-pitched harmonicas.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

like E, stuff like that. F, you know what I mean? G and A were not very good. I think it was C, B flat, you know, those sort of high keys.

SPEAKER_01:

So the harmonica could get heard more because it's more piercing, isn't it? The low ones are a little lost, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they do. You can't do as much with amplification. There was this band called Sons of the Desert. And they were a great band. It was a guy playing mandolin, Irish guy, another guy on bass, another guy on guitar, and I think a woman singing, and he was hitting a mandolin player. I said, hey, man, you should get a little amp. That'll be your money, you know? So I got this little amp called, what's it called, Out for Lunch or something? You just plugged it in, you know, you put the Bluetooth. It was about the size of a little book or something. Yeah. First of all, yeah. But it made a difference. I could use it for the lower harps, playing with it. And obviously, the more I played it, the more I played it, the bigger amps I got and stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it here that you were heard by the guy who made the documentary? Did he hear you busking, or were you already playing in bands by the time that he picked you up?

SPEAKER_00:

Was I doing band gigs then? I might, yeah, I think I've done gigs then. Definitely by the time I met John Waters, I think it was 1991. Yeah. So I've been playing for about three or four years. He came by, just dropped his card in and said, call me. I thought, oh. As soon as I see the BBC, I thought, wow, okay. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

And this is why you were busking,

SPEAKER_00:

was it? Yeah, I was busking, yeah. I was busking with my money and everything was. So I gave him a call and he said, oh, I think we're doing quite good. You know what I mean? He got something interesting about it he used to come up to the BBC so he said erm what's today, you know, we'll talk about something. And then he said, yeah, I think we'd do, well, first of all, he said, I think he's really, you know, he started talking to me, I think you're quite good at what you're doing, it's interesting, you don't often see it, you know, black guy, English guy playing the blues and all that sort of stuff. He said, do you fancy a beer, wine, drinks? Yeah, we went to the pub and then he started talking about, hey, we'll do a documentary and stuff about me. Great. You know what I mean? So, I literally just started playing, you know, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So just to let people know Oh, listen, so there's a documentary which is called Two Generations of the Blues, and I'll put a link to it on the podcast page, and it's about you. So you're the sort of young guy playing the blues, and then I think the second half's about Big Bill Broonzy, isn't it? So there's this kind of split. So, yeah, people can check this out. So, sorry, carry on with the story about the documentary.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was called Two Generations of the Blues. First of all, they filmed me in different locations playing and stuff, and then they thought, look, we need to do a bit of an interview to come to my house, so I ain't got enough of that. you, know a bit more about you, and then they decided to combine it with the big Bill Broomsey thing, you know, and they called it Two Generations of the Blues. John Waters, yeah, kind of opened doors for me, in a way, because no one knew about me or anything, and it was like all of a sudden, BBC documentary. That was quite weird, because a lot of the blues scene didn't really know me, or anything, there was definitely not much reaction from it. It opened doors for me to get gigs.

SPEAKER_01:

And so did that get you some slots on BBC Radio as well? Because you got some airplay on Andy Kershaw's BBC.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, what it was, before we did the documentary in 91, I went to film him, and he didn't come out until 93. So in 93, around that time, he got me a few. I went on to Andy Kershaw's show. And then I went on to Loose Ends with Ned Charing. That was quite funny. It was really horsey, really early in the morning, yeah. And then stuff like that, I think. Did I do a Johnny Walker one? I can't remember. But I actually went round with John Walker to promote the documentary. Yeah, so he was a producer for all them guys, John Peel and Andy Kershaw. So he was a face in the BBC, you know. He knew his music and stuff. Very nice guy. Easy to get along with. Knowledgeable in music. Funny as well. Funny as well. I got on a ride with him. It was good.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. So people listening will be encouraged to get out there busking, eh? You might just make it.

SPEAKER_00:

You never know, you know. A lot of people busking. I'll tell you that. Yeah, well, again, you know,

SPEAKER_01:

it shows, doesn't it? You've got to get out there playing, don't you? That's the message. Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_00:

it. You have to go out there. You have to get out there and play. Well, when we could play in these times of playing out on the street or whatever and playing... He's on to gigs and stuff. It depends because sometimes one would never do that sort of thing like busking on the street or in the underground and the street. But it can be a bit tough because in them days, you know, you used to get a lot of hassle from the police, you know. Take your travel cards and the bills used to pile up, you know. You'd be paying... At one point I had, I think it was£1,100 outstanding for busking fines. Busking fines,

SPEAKER_01:

oh wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was then. Yeah? And I was... I knew the warrant officer. I won't mention his name but he's in Campbell He actually phoned me up and said, Don, open your door this weekend. There are warrants for arrests, so then you end up in court. He came down to see me Monday morning. Wow, man. He gave me that call, do you know what I mean? Because I'd opened the door and said, right, you're nicked. But that was right just before the buses got changed over. So I actually had a license then when I had that big bill. So when I actually came up from the cell to the judge in the court, he said to me... well, Mr. Linton, bring your license next time and we'll see what you can do. So I actually got off with that fine, all that money, because I had a busking license.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So did you need a license then and you just didn't have one? No,

SPEAKER_00:

no. That was in the transition when it became legal, yeah. I think it was when Ken Livingstone was mayor.

SPEAKER_01:

So busking was illegal then, was it?

SPEAKER_00:

Legal for years, man. The police used to treat you rough, man. You know what I mean? Wow, I didn't realize it was illegal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. All sorts of stuff, you know. Take your travel card off, you ain't got no money. Someone will be just spiteful, you know what I mean?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they were, yeah, some of them. They would be chatting to someone else and then you'd go in the prison and nick you. You know what I mean? All sorts of stuff. You just see a bit of, yeah, there was a bit of prejudice going on there. They treat certain buskers different. I remember meeting some guy who played classical music, a blonde-haired white guy, and I thought, he'd have been nicked in like six months. I thought, what? How the hell did that happen? Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely know what you mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's a bit of that going on down the tube. I wouldn't have a busker be standing there chatting to the police for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you still busk now at all?

SPEAKER_00:

None of them days are done, mate.

SPEAKER_01:

Still do it, but no, you've given up with that. That's good. On to better things, yeah. So we can move on a bit now to your recording career. So I understand you're First recording, your debut was at Homeboy Blues in 1991. Was that your album or just with somebody else?

SPEAKER_00:

That was me, like I was saying earlier, about Pygmy Pete Smith and Tyron on Washboard. That was us three. It was a tape. It wasn't a CD or anything. It was just a tape.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We recorded at, I think, around a pizza house, I think, actually, yeah. He had a little recording thing at his house in Mill Hill. We recorded it.

SPEAKER_01:

So just recorded kind of at home, was it, with some basic equipment?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was, yeah. As a trio, we just set it busking and set it at gigs.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00:

By that time, we were doing gigs together. Yeah, because I'd known Pete, and I also knew Tyrone from a long time ago, my mate. I'd met Pete before I did the John Waters thing, yeah? Mm-hmm. Because Pete and Tyrone appear in the documentary as well, and we're busking outside Leicester Square somewhere. Yeah, that was the first album. It was your Homeboy Blues. Yeah, Homeboy Blues, which you can see that my plane was right there. And then the next one was Packing My Bag, which was recorded in 1997. Yeah, that was the vibe again. so at

SPEAKER_01:

this stage you know you described I think your music as Brixton Blues yeah so what is this Brixton Blues style So

SPEAKER_00:

you've always had this

SPEAKER_01:

kind of mixture of the blues with the reggae and ska

SPEAKER_00:

sort of rhythms? I think it just came out in my music playing, you know? That's what happened. They started more telling me doing them. Well, you can hear that sort of almost like a sky rhythm in certain tunes, can't you anyway, in rhythm

SPEAKER_01:

and blues? Yeah. It really works with the blues, doesn't it? And it works with the harmonica as well. You know, what is it you think about the sort of reggae beats or the harmonica maybe that does work so well?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I suppose you can do a harmonica on anything, really. I

SPEAKER_01:

think it goes well together, doesn't it? The reggae beat with sort of the backbeat to some of the bluesy sort of music.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And the harmonica works well in it, I think, as you said earlier on. Because the harmonica can be very strong rhythmically, can't it? So I think, you know, you grew up on doing the sort of rhythms, didn't you, on the harmonica. I think that's what makes it work so well, doesn't

SPEAKER_00:

it? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's always been a part of it. I've been more to that side than the rock side, if you're supposed to speak, and the funky side more than the rock side.

SPEAKER_01:

And I like to get people on who have a bit of a different angle and it's not all just straight blues. Some people are straight blues players, but you've definitely got that

SPEAKER_00:

sort of... Oh, I love playing the straight blues, yeah, sure, as well, and songwriting and all that sort of stuff. I just do it the way I do it. I think if it comes out okay and the band want to do it and they're interested, I'll do it sometimes, you know? Yeah. It depends on whether it works with the album. I kind of song write in all sorts of ways. I write from harmonica. That lovely tune was written from harmonica. One's Hey No More and It's What You Want from Roots 2. That was from the piano. 3.44 in the morning, that was a piano tune. I was on the piano, packing my bass guitar. So do you

SPEAKER_01:

play these other instruments yourself? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I wouldn't play them on stage, but I play them at home. I've been playing guitar probably longer than I've been playing harmonica. But, you know, the guys I play with, you know, they just fuck with me when I'm not playing. Maybe I might come and do one or two tunes. I do sometimes in the jam. But piano, no. No way as good as a piano player. But I can get my way around to write on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Both things. And I feel more comfortable just playing harmonica and singing on stage.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, going on to that second album, the Vibing It album, I think you wrote quite a few songs for that album, didn't

SPEAKER_00:

you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So how do you go on about writing songs and, you know, again, maybe writing some contemporary blues songs that are, you know, reflecting the sort of today rather than singing 1950s songs?

SPEAKER_00:

I suppose it's the rhythm and topic of lyrics. Pardon me, like Packing My Bags from that album. That's like, it starts off in kind of like a rhythm and blues sort of, sort of short four sort of rhythm, you know what I mean? And then it goes straight into kind of reggae groove. But it's got a kind of Skari vibe anyway. Skari sort of rhythm and blues, the back mile bag sort of thing. And it goes into the reggae groove, another different tempo, then back up to the other tempo, and then back into the double right at the end, which is another tempo. So it's got three tempos, three different rhythms, but it kind of works. I don't know how it does, but it does.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it definitely does.

SPEAKER_00:

It's really catchy. It's something like Half My Darling is, Well, that one, I just heard the horn. I heard the bass line in the horn section. You know what I mean? And we just built that on playing it more. But I've played it different, and the song is different over the years, how I play them compared to how I play them now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you've recorded that, a couple of your songs on a few of the albums, haven't you? Yeah. My bunch is on, what, two or three?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll see you

SPEAKER_00:

next time. I think I've been working with Brass Dog Records, the last two albums of the songwriting stuff, and they wanted me to record other stuff again. Well, Dan's recorded That's My Brute many

SPEAKER_01:

times. Well, it's interesting to hear, you know, how you progressed by listening to the song as you changed it over the years. So it's quite interesting from that one.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, what is that? That's like 20-odd years ago now, isn't it? Not scary, eh? Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Looking back on that documentary you were in, you're looking quite young on there

SPEAKER_00:

as well. Very young, yeah. I'm in my 20s when that was filmed, man. I'm in my 20s, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm in my 50s now, you know what I mean? So that was like 30 years ago, nearly. Yeah. Or 25-odd years ago,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. And then you did your second album, which is called Rich Dew, which had quite a mixture of the traditional genres again on there, isn't it? You've got this one called Roots on there, which is kind of reggae, ska sort of one again. And it's sort of dub music on there. And... What about that album?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the difficult second album. I quite like some tunes from Root Stew still, and we're doing a mixture of the same stuff. and from vibing it, really. The tunes that stand out for me on that would be, like, Man's Shot Down, which is just, like, almost that straightforward reggae, really. It's got some bluesy elements in it.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_00:

At this

SPEAKER_01:

point, you were still doing a lot of the work yourself, yeah? You were kind of promoting yourself, booking your own gigs and everything. And these were self-released, these first two albums, weren't

SPEAKER_00:

they? Yeah, they were. The first four albums. I mean, we did that home recording with Pete and Tyrone as a trio. But after that, I did another four more albums before I did the last two with Brostock in 2018. Packing my bags in 2029, true.

SPEAKER_01:

So, but these early albums got some BBC, again, some BBC Radio playing, didn't they? So you were getting some, you know, some exposure through these, so...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, we did, yeah. Through a lot of time, like I was saying, with the documentary that opened doors to me, people got, I mean, how many guys, you know, got made a documentary about them playing the blues in the UK on that low level? Not anybody apart from probably Eric Clapton was like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's all American, isn't it, yeah? So it was a good boost to my career for that. Definitely, yeah. Even though I wasn't as ready as I could have been, but I still did okay. Yeah. I always play the best of my ability. That's it, you know.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

And then in 2011, you released the Mama Said album. This was with Ruby Records.

SPEAKER_00:

Ruby Records is my mother's name, Ruby.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, that's just

SPEAKER_00:

another one. So Vibrant is Ruby Records. Roots 2 is Ruby Records.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're all from Ruby Records, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, brilliant, yeah. And so this one, Mama Said, was a bit of a mixture of acoustic and electric, wasn't it? Yeah. So was that something that the first time you tried that?

SPEAKER_00:

Acoustic and electric, yeah, yeah. It was where the songwriting went for that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, you obviously play with these kind of reggae beats, but like you say, you like the sort of straight-ahead blues, and you've got the Boogie Disease on there, which is a good example of that, a good sort of blues rocker. And then... That's a rough number, yeah. Oh, it's a Dr. Ross one, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Dr. Ross

SPEAKER_00:

And then

SPEAKER_01:

Mama Said, was that one that you wrote?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is. Mama Said, yeah. They were some of the words that my mother said to me when I was younger. Because, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to it. Yeah. The lyrics, you know, like, you put your hand in fire, you get burned. My mum was another one, when cats say rat belly is bitter, when you want to eat your food. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, yeah. But I remember doing a gig once and this Scotch woman came and said, was your mother Scottish? My mum used to play the same things. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01:

think

SPEAKER_00:

they all do. It's universal, you know what I mean? Some of them lyrics are universal, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, they're the best sort of songs. Yeah, great on

SPEAKER_00:

you for writing that.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, and I think you do... Sunrise on there, it's possibly the only sort of reggae vibe on there, isn't it, on that album?

SPEAKER_00:

No, Rollin' Tomorrow's got a little kind of reggae lint to it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't remember now. Rollin' Tomorrow, I can't remember. Oh, yeah, Sunrise and J-Wise. It's two instrumentals.

SPEAKER_01:

J-Wise, yeah, yeah. J-Wise is like a dub, isn't it? But yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we do a straightforward one. And then we did a dub mix of that. But yeah, they were influenced by me going to Jamaica. When I first went to Jamaica, I think 2003. Yeah. Yeah, so we did that 2011. So a lot of them songs, like J-Wise and Sunrise, there's a lot, like, you know, like in Jamaica, like Sunrise, when everything just cracks open, you know what I mean? You hear the car cracking up, someone chopping something, getting to work, you know what I mean? And Sunrise, and Hustle and Bustle, and people talking, and... morning, and you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Things like that, I got the idea, and that's from Sunrise. Jay Wise is an area of my dad, my granddad.

SPEAKER_01:

He

SPEAKER_00:

was called Doc Linton, believe it or not. And he was a butcher. And he had, I think he built three or four brick houses. But one of the ones where the main family house was up on top of the hill. Up in, um... Up in Kingless, yeah. They call it J-Y... Well, they call it Jimmy Young's, but I call it J-Y. I don't know why they call it Jimmy Young's. I don't know why. But it's quite up on the hill, and that's where my granddad, you know, used to do... That's where my dad was brought up. That's where my uncles, my cousins were brought up. You know what I mean? Yeah. It wasn't an easy life, you know?

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_00:

Dad, I think he left when he was about 18, I think, or something like that. And the story is he sold a cow or something to get here. So it's almost like a blue story, isn't it? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

He used to cut cane in Florida. Three of my uncles used to cut cane in Florida. After that, two of them came to England. The other one never went back to Jamaica. He's still there now. He's still alive. My parents, they're from Trelawny, so it's quite what you call cocksuntries. It's original. When that came up, that rock out of the sea, that's the original forest, the country, you know what I mean? Whenever it came up, how many hundreds and hundreds of years, a thousand, whatever. There were countries, those countries my folks are from, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, and then you did a, in 2014, Dealing With That Feeling, which was an acoustic album played with Adam Blake as your long-term guitarist. Is that a duo album?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it's a duo album with me and Adam. We used to do a lot of duo gigs together.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So we thought we'd try and capture what we did.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's always

SPEAKER_01:

nice, isn't it, to get the duos? Plenty of space for the harmonica then, isn't there? And it's quite nice with the interaction. So I always like to hear a good duo album with the harmonica. So yeah, good to hear that one. And then your more recent albums, 2018, Packing My Bag. This is on Brass Dog's record, yes. Was this the first one with them? Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Tim Ballymont and the guys from Avery Down at Brass Dog. Me and Tim, we did two albums together, which is rare. We did two albums together on a handshake. It's really good. We just wanted to produce some good music. It was my first final pack in my bag. I did a recording in Dean Street Studios in Soho. A similar thing, but we did about two or three days recording there. Yeah. And then more days mixing and stuff. We got a combination of Adam Blake on guitar, Gary Williams and Kendrick Roll sharing the drums, Lance Rose on bass, and Petar Zikovic on piano and organ, yeah. We had a lot of fun recording that album. That's my first time with Brass Dog, and it got a good reaction, got a lot of radio play from Packing My Bags and stuff. the more newer version.

SPEAKER_01:

The early albums are good, but you can hear there's a certain, you know, the production...

SPEAKER_00:

Oh

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, definitely.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

More Latin groove than his one, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, I love Billy Boy Arnold. I've never seen him play, but yeah, I love the way Billy Boy Arnold speaks as well. I like when he talks. And yeah, that was the first working with Brass Dog, and it was good. From that, we went off and we did the Karis Matthews Good Life Festival in 2018. the smallest set, 2018, and he asked us back to do the 2019 one, so we just smashed it. It was really good. Yeah, it was brilliant. We played in the main stage the next time, next year round. So, yeah, he was giving us some good feedback from that album.

SPEAKER_01:

And, yeah, so again, I got another rocker on there. We broke him down, and you've got the 344 in the morning, which is a song about insomnia.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it wasn't about insomnia. It was about my noisy neighbor.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it was about your noisy neighbor.

SPEAKER_00:

Coming in for a gig, coming from a gig that late in the morning, a quarter to three in the morning,

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's about that, really. And you knock on your neighbour's door, say, turn it down, you know what I mean? They say, what, you're going to bed, are you? It's got in on you, yeah, maybe. I wouldn't mind trying to get to bed yet. It wasn't a quarter to three in the morning, so... MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_01:

And then there's a live album which is out, which is available on the internet to listen to, which, again, I'll put a link to on the podcast page, called Live in London, which does a lot of the songs that you played on your albums and a few other ones, like I'm Walking, which is a classic blues song, and Rock Me. So... So yeah, that's a good one to hear you playing live. Again, a really good quality recording of you doing a live gig. Yeah, that was

SPEAKER_00:

2018 or 2017. Mine must have been 2018, yeah. It was the same year. It was at the Hideaway in Streatham.

SPEAKER_01:

And then your most recent album, 2020, is a no-entry album, which... Again, I think you've got a lot of good press about, haven't you? You're on the front of Mojo magazine, which is a music magazine here in the UK. And then you recorded this in Tolrag Studios, and you used all kind of vintage equipment, and you sort of recorded it semi-live, didn't you, over a few days, just capturing the live sort of feel?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, we called everything apart from the percussion. Tony Ucha came and did a session later. It was the same guys as last time. Lance Rose on bass, Kenny Rowland drums, Justin Kenrick and Blake guitar, Petarzyk with some piano. But what we did, I think it was 2019. January the 2nd and 3rd, cold morning, went in and we just knocked out. Over two days, we did 15 tunes, I think 18 takes, and just tried to do like a live film. And that was with Liam Watson, Grammy award-winning producer. And the studio is just great. You know, it's all vintage stuff. That really sets it. Everything sounds great. It looks great.

SPEAKER_01:

Remember which amp bar you played the harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

through? I played the amp, the harmonica I played through amp was, was it Grampian? It's actually on the No Entry album. It's a British UK amp. It just sounds lovely. I think it is Grampian. Yeah, I wanted to buy the amp. But Neil was saying it's a good amp to stay at home. Travel well. Because we've still got some more tunes in the can. Some whole club can do some more tunes. I'll play for the amp again. But No Entry album, as far as the name, the name came about because a lot of times, you know, with all the Windrush stuff and the Brexit things, I mean, most of the band are immigrants, families. Sometimes you'd get a bit of reaction, especially from about Brexit. I'm glad my parents left before all this Windrush stuff happened. So there's a few gigs it was a bit like one-hand clap before I said that. The No Entry came about, I couldn't think of a title, and from one of the photo sessions, a photo session we did from a mixing session, there's a photo of me with No Entry behind me. So I thought, yeah, let's call it No Entry, because like what I just said, it's almost like No Entry, Brexit, Windrush getting kicked out, most of the bands, immigrant families. So it fitted it perfectly with that No Entry blues, the slow, minor blues.

SPEAKER_01:

There's this mixture, yes, the first side, sort of more blues, straight head blues, and then the second side got that kind of reggae blues fusion on the second half, and there's a speakeasy song, and then Howlin' For My Darling, which is the kind of Howlin' Wolf song with that kind of reggae sort of beat again, isn't it?

UNKNOWN:

Howlin' For My Darling

SPEAKER_00:

different version again from the first album yeah totally different yeah but still the same song so um yeah i'm really pleased of it the sound the performances the photos the design i think everybody just did a blind and job production you know i'm really pleased a bit with getting reactions now obviously it's been a hard year this last year

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

to release an album probably the worst year ever But we went ahead and did it anyway. We put the CD out, I think maybe in May, and then we put the album out in October. We had a re-launch on vinyl. Now, I think it was the 23rd of October. We were lucky as one of them bits, we came out of lockdown. We kind of went back in again before October, and we did a CD album launch, vinyl launch, at Nell's in West London. It was rocking. People would get out of their seats, but they couldn't. You know what I mean? So clapping became a yelp, and a yelp became a stamp on the floor. Aye! He was mad, yeah, he was really great. He was really good, really good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm hoping that when we get out playing again, it's going to be like that. Isn't everyone's going to be rampant to get out

SPEAKER_00:

and go out and hear some music? Yeah, I was happy to play, you know, I was happy to play. Yeah, on the vinyl, if you've got the vinyl, it's like that. Yeah, first slide is mainly blues. Second slide is mainly reggae. We turn it over. And

SPEAKER_01:

there's a song on there, Big Man's Gone, yeah, which, again, you wrote the lyrics for. Maybe you want to tell us the story behind that one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a story about a journey of my father. He passed away quite recently, the last couple of years, few years. I'll mention his name. His name is Lucius Constantine Linton. So he passed away. And it's a journey of me and my brother taking back to God's Jamaica and bury him, basically. That's what that song's about. The big man's gone My mum is so strong We won't be long We'll travel cross land And see Your love's good for me It's good for me Home, home, away Some of the band was saying, man, you've written a counteraction to Packing My Bag in a funny, funny kind of way. And I thought, you're right.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I think one of the songs, is it off the No Answer album, The Rain In Your Life? There's a good remix of this from by Chad Jackson, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there is. There has been, yeah, a remix. come out just at the end of last year.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a kind of DJ remix, isn't it? You're getting these kind of dance beats behind it.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because you've done a few recordings with a few other, for example, the trans-global underground, the Scorch song.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that one, they actually sampled Harlequin from a five-minute album.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

Whereas the other album I did, I thought that if I'm on a good session, they actually want me for a vocal session. So I sung one there. I can't remember the name of the album. The Nile Delta or something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, cool. Yeah. And you also played with Joe Bonamassa, the guitar player. You recorded with him in the Abbey Road Studios.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. That was quite recent. Last year, before this lockdown madness, COVID thing started, we... Do you know

SPEAKER_01:

what the name of that album was? Is that released

SPEAKER_00:

now? The name of the album is called Roll T. So it's got a lot of the British... You try to go back to the British R&B or blues, blues rock players... How it happened, he had a day off before he was going to go and start doing his session, and we share a booking agent, and he wondered if he wanted to come down and see us play. So he came down to our gig we do in Brixton. We do that every Wednesday in the Effort Tavern in Brixton. And he came down, and he was pretty cool. Laid back and everything. And then the second set, I said, do you want to join us? He said, yeah, sure. And Richie was cool about it, the guitar player. So that's what happened. He come on and sat in with a couple of tunes. All these people from all these blues, the blues team were out. Where are they coming from? I don't know. All of a sudden, all these faces turned up. I don't usually come to the gig, and they were just all there. Obviously, they'd heard the word that he was coming down. Yeah, and then from that, the session came about. I got a call for a session to do Abbey Road, first time I'd been there. So that was quite good. The tune I'm on on the album is called Look Out, Man.

UNKNOWN:

Look Out, Man

SPEAKER_00:

Quite a high-pitched harmonica. What is it? Is it F-sharp harmonica? So I'm in C-sharp, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, you don't get many on that key, so

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. So, yeah, it worked out okay in the end. It was a pretty cool session and everything. I was happy to be part of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00:

Another guy who I spoke to, another person who I met busking was Abraham Wilson, who played on my Mama Said album, The Trumpet. He played on Through My Veins and Rolling Tomorrow on that album. And also J.Y. He played some trumpet on that. I met him when I was busking. It must have been in the early 2000s, 2005 or something like that. He said to me, Oh, man, were you probably from the Stateside? And I did my music thing. Yeah, man, I'm from way down south London, mate. I said, are you from London, England? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we got chatting and he said he's got a project coming up. He was signed to Dune Records, which is, Dune Records is a jazz label run by Janine Ives and Gary Crosby, which features a lot of the young, a lot of young jazzers that have been through the Young Warriors and that sort of stuff that are coming now, you know what I mean? A lot of UK jazz. I got a call about a month later and he said, come down for rehearsal on Monday in the office and we've got Roddy Scott's showcase on Wednesday. What? So I went down, just rehearsing, but obviously I don't read music or nothing. So he came down to my house the next day, and I kind of worked the chart out with arrows and all sorts of stuff, working out where I was coming, coming out, and what I've got to do. And then we went and did a gig in Ronnie Scott from the Wednesday. So that was quite tense. From there, we went and did more gigs. I think that was a showcase to get to record the album at Charlton Jazz Festival, which never really happened. Anyway, I ended up recording an album with him and touring with him anyway, and the album called Ride, A Ferris Wheel to the Modern Day Delta. It's got New Orleans, jazz, funk, and a little bit of hip-hop in it, you know. Yeah, so... Different for me, because I'm always used to playing in the front man. Difficult in a certain way, but yeah, it was fun. It was great, actually, yeah. Lovely brass players and that, yeah. And

SPEAKER_01:

so you'd play everywhere. You played with these guys, and you played across the UK and Europe. You even played in Japan, and you played at the Walmart festival as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a couple of times, yeah. Great one, the Walmart for me. I'd say I prefer playing them sort of festivals than I do actual blues festivals, actually. Sometimes with them sort of festivals, just anything goes. People groove for you if you're grooving. Do you know what I mean? It's not all blues-orientated.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

As in, you're going to get African stuff, you're going to get folk, you're going to get the whole gamut. Jazz, you're going to get everything. So I love playing them sort of festivals like that, or something like Karis Matthews Festival, or the Wilderness, and places like that, which are less rock-guitar Yeah, yeah, fantastic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. People, you know, they want to try out different sort of music, don't they? So you're a bit different, aren't you? You're playing a bit of blues,

SPEAKER_00:

not like every other blues band. So, yeah, I definitely could see that. Yeah. Yeah. We do some slow blues and stuff, but we do quite an up-tempo dancey set, really. People go up and dance.

SPEAKER_01:

So as well as you're playing as well, you're also quite an artist, yeah? You do... lots of painting, including lots of portraits of musicians, and also some sculpture as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've been doing the art from when I was a kid, a long time before I even picked up a harmonica. That was like my pastime. I always used to love, I used to get them little paint sets. There's like blocks of colour in it, and you get one brush in it. The water, you'd get the water and wet it. When I was a kid in the 70s, I used to love using them, you know. And when the white ran out, I'd be going, ah, you've got me mad. Yeah, I used to do arty stuff when I was a kid, and I just loved drawing. I kind of just kept on doing it. I actually went to college, studied it a couple of years in Brixton. Did about a year and a bit in Chelsea before they kicked me out. As a young guy, I used to want to be a graphic designer. That was on my mind. That was sort of the N-word back then. I never wanted to be, but it never happened. You know, busking on the streets of London.

SPEAKER_01:

So a question I ask each time, Errol, for people is if you had 10 minutes of practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Practice time with harmonica. I just pick it up when I get a vibe to it and play along. I mean, I did so much practicing before. When I used to go busking, that used to keep your chops up because that is the hardest thing you can do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's easier playing whether you've got two or three or four guys behind you. When you're there on your own and you've got to sing, stamp your feet and blow that harmonica, That was exhausting. But I suppose it was good because you could put an extra few bars in here and there or stop for a long time and come back in. You had the privilege of that, doing your own timing and that. But actually, physically, I'd say busking is probably, yeah, physically my hardest thing I did, yeah, when it comes to music. A couple of hours busking, go home, get ready, go to the gig. Yeah, man, but yeah, I never used to... Buskers used to use beat boxes, you know, electric boxes with the beats.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I never used them. Stomp boxes, the

SPEAKER_01:

things you

SPEAKER_00:

stomp on. Yeah, stomp boxes on my feet. Yeah. Yeah, that was good.

SPEAKER_01:

And do you play any chromatic harmonica at all?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, only third position, really, on it. I mess around on other stuff. I haven't mastered the chromatic, no.

SPEAKER_01:

No, that's cool, yeah. No,

SPEAKER_00:

I haven't.

SPEAKER_01:

Always good to play a little bit of third position stuff, though, as you say, isn't it? Nice and easy to sort of swap over from the diatonic then.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Talking about gear now, then, what harmonicas do you play?

SPEAKER_00:

Mainly blues harps. I own the blues harps mainly, and I used to play a lot of the pro harps back in the day. I find if I brought a new pro harp recently, mainly the blues harp, and I used some of the Oscars as well with the reggae minor. I don't really use the Oscar for blues. It'd be more reggae, certain reggae tunes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So you do play different tunings to get those minor tunings of the Oscars? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely, yeah. And I've got a Hohner minor, but an orangey-blue C minor harmonica from Hohner, yeah. So that's how that tune came about, because I brought that harmonica, really, basically. I said, let me blow this now in the future, and here we go. And that was it. That's how it came around. But yeah, I'll use different tunings always after trying different harmonicas. But I've never mastered the chromatic enough before the button breaks. But I will, I'm going to definitely get one, spend some money on a decent one. So we'll have to do more other stuff on the chromatic. But I think the blues harp is my thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

definitely. The blues harp and the mines and diatonic and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, the

SPEAKER_01:

reggae. And do you have a favourite key of diatonic? You mentioned earlier you used to play some ones to get the sound projected but any favorite key

SPEAKER_00:

keys favorite key love loads of them in it c harp g harp yeah um b flat harps nice a flat harps nice as well you need flat yeah all depends what works with the voice for me playing wise yeah i prefer the than the higher ones i prefer the more mid-range lower ones i still use the higher ones still and get fun out of all of them

SPEAKER_01:

of course they're all they all got the different character haven't they which is great And do you play any overblows?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think I do. You'd have to tell me that, man. I don't know. Honestly, I'm just old school, man. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

No

SPEAKER_00:

worries. I don't know. Probably not. I don't know. You'd have to listen to your album and tell

SPEAKER_01:

me

SPEAKER_00:

if I do. I don't think I do.

SPEAKER_01:

And what about the embouchure you use? Are you a lip person or tongue blocking or something else?

SPEAKER_00:

I do both, really. I thumb block and I do the lip pierce, yeah. I do both. I like kind of the lip piercing one as well, the kind of sort of like, almost thinner sound actually, isn't it? Depends though, isn't it? And then you've got the more chunkier sound of the tambourine. So, but I like, yeah, I think they both work on well in whatever song you're doing, whatever you want to play it in, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

And amplifier-wise, what's your amplifiers of choice?

SPEAKER_00:

My amplifier of choice is... At the moment, I've got this one, a nice red amp here, that was built by Ted, a friend of Adam, the guitarist. It used to be an old radio, and now it's my amplifier. So I used that. I used it on the Packing My Badger album, and some tunes on that, yeah. It's a handmade amp from an old radio saying made in Hackney. Wow. So is that a small

SPEAKER_01:

amp then?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a small amp. So sometimes you can't really work at bigger gigs to get it around. It doesn't push out as much. So since I was on the PV still, I got that old PV and I got a bigger one as well, PV. They're the main three amps I use. A microphone,

SPEAKER_01:

you say you use a bullet microphone. Is that any particular one?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I usually use a straightforward show. I think I recorded a show on vibing it, a whole album show, Mike. But no, I just use the... No, not the green bullet, just straightforward... 57? Something

SPEAKER_01:

like

SPEAKER_00:

that, yeah, 101. ones that's on the first album the rest of the time it's a green bullet or it can be there's another cheaper one which is I think it's blue I can't remember the name of it but that works well as well so that's what we use you know in cheap and gentle when it comes to harmonicas that's

SPEAKER_01:

what all the old classic guys used they used to use these cheap mics that are used in taxi ranks apparently you know to get that sound and everyone spends a fortune on the microphones now and they used to play the cheapest mics they could get their hands on I think so it goes to show isn't

SPEAKER_00:

it there you go yeah And

SPEAKER_01:

what about any effects, pedals, any delay or reverb or anything else?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I don't really. The other thing I use, which the band make me use, is this thing called Feedback Blocker. If the battery runs out, it starts moaning. So that's the only thing. So I use that one. It pays on the feedback. Especially when you're in a small, like a little pub or that sort of venue, a small acoustic venue. You don't want to lose too much feedback going on.

SPEAKER_01:

No, definitely not, no. And so Well, last question then. Obviously, we've been in a very strange year in 2020 and hopefully we're going to come out of it this spring and this year. So, have you got anything lined up? Any plans to get out there playing again?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, definitely, yeah. We'll be out there again pushing this album, the No Anxiety album. I don't know how early we'll come, but I hope we'll be out there. We'll be playing in the Jazz Cafe in London in Camden on the 28th of March. So, I don't know, I'm hoping still. We had it booked for the 5th of January and it got cancelled the 4th of then, so... I hope we'll be out by then. And just doing your normal little gigs and stuff out there playing, yeah. I look forward to it. But yeah, we'll be definitely around the bigger level this year, hopefully, if we get a chance to. There's some good people behind me, more now than ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Look forward to checking you out playing again. It'll be great to see you back out there and playing this year. So thanks very much, Errol Linton, for joining me today. Sure, it's a pleasure. That's episode 31 of the podcast done. Thanks so much for listening again. And it's over to Errol Linton to play us out with the no entry blues. No entry blues.