Kings of the Blues, a tribute show which explored the best-known songs by three icons of the blues, attracted a large crowd to the One Touch theatre.

 

Main Street Blues have expanded their usual bass, drums, keyboards and guitar line-up to include the fantastic talents of Lesley Wilson on trumpet and Kassandra Louisa E’Silva on sax. Both provided backing vocals which really augmented the sound.

 

This show highlighted three blues kings: BB King, Albert King and Freddie King. Prior to each number being played, the band shared background stories on the song and performer.

 

Albert’s Born Under a Bad Sign, Freddie’s instrumental great Hideaway and BB’s classic Never Make Your Move Too Soon warmed up the audience nicely. My first half highlight was the song made famous by Albert and by the late Gary Moore, Oh Pretty Woman.

 

Post-interval, Smith took up the acoustic guitar for a couple of beautiful songs including Freddie’s version of the Jimmy Rodgers song That’s Alright and BB’s version of the Mel London song Little by Little. A switch back to the electric guitar and Freddie’s See See Baby, got the dancing started, followed by Albert’s Cadillac Assembly Line. These featured superb vocals by Lesley and Kasandra and a bit of great bit of Hammond Organ from Iain Hanna.

 

Another highlight was Albert’s Tin Pan Alley – the band’s own version of this number has amassed more than 600,000 hits on social media which is remarkable.

 

The show ended with a great version of, Riding with The King, which BB recorded with Eric Clapton. That got the crowd up dancing once more, before the band received a standing ovation.