Wizz Jones

Audiences have been enjoying Wizz Jones’s unique style of blues and folk for the best part of 60 years. And judging by the veteran’s St George’s Day gig at Mycenae House in Blackheath he looks set to carry on wowing the crowds for a while yet. His concert for Global Fusion Music and Arts ranged by Billy Hill’s 1936 classic The Glory Of Love by way of Blind Boy Fuller (Weeping Willow Blues) and Walter Vinson (Sitting On Top Of The World) to Pete Atkin/Clive James (Touch Has A Memory) and Dave Sudbury’s jaunty ode to a racing pigeon, The King Of Rome. He also included four of his own brilliant compositions – the elegiac Burma Star, the hauntingly beautiful ballad Happiness Is Free, the equally lovely Lucky The Man and his finale When I Leave Berlin, which Bruce Springsteen recently used to open a Berlin concert – although, Wizz quipped, “the bastard didn’t mention my name.” As a finale he was joined in a blues jam by GFMA founder and harmonica ace Louisa Le Marchand. His improvised song began: “The Queen is 90 years old and Barack Obama is in town/ And someone called Boris seems to be wearing a crown.” Genius.

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