Carvin Jones

This could easily have gone into my music blog but then again the "Blues" would have gone unnoticed by the masses(My assumption here is that the masses would read my blog, which doesn't seem to be happening at the moment...but what the heck).

I went to see the Carvin Jones band perform yesterday at the jolly-farmers pub(Purley). The band comprised of Carvin Jones on guitar and vocals as the front man, and two italian guys, Will and Flaco on base and drums respectively. I had not heard about the band ever before and was rather sceptical at first looking at a rather smaller venue which was a small local pub in Purley, Greater London. The band website boasted of Carvin being hailed by Eric Clapton as one of the best upcoming blues guitarist. Well, that coming from Clapton, the guy had to be a real guitar hero i thought.

So i got out of office, took bus number 466 and was in purley in about 20 minutes. A 5 minute walk to the venue and here i was. Ian(a colleague) and Dan were already there.

We waited for Carvin to start at 9 P.M. and discussed lagers, beers, real ales, the superiority of blues and rock and how the masses are going to the dogs and listening to teeny bop and stuff.
A little late then scheduled, the band came up on stage at 9:30 and started with an old school blues jam. Carvin had crafted out a brilliant piece on the blues scale with some virtuoso guitar techniques for the opening piece and it prepared the audience for what was to come as a grand blues-rock n roll holocaust. Carvin then belted out some all time classics from Hendrix, Clapton and B.B. King and some of his original material which was damn impressive. It was a complete show with out and out brilliant music, tremendous showmanship of Carvin with shear decadence of rolling here and tumbling there. Although I'm not such a great fan of acts of playing guitar with your feet and behind your back etc. and Carvin had all of that, but with such astonishing music, i could live with it.
With two encores and thunderous applause from the crowd throughout, the night ended at 12. As i made my way for some territorial pissing, i got a chance to chat up with Carvin and the drummer. Here's an excerpt of a sort of short interview :

Me: Hi Carvin. I'm Prafulla.
Carvin: Hi there, how you doin'?
Me: I gather that you're influences range from Hendrix to Clapton to B.B.King and Stevey Ray Vaughan. But who's the MAN?
Carvin: B.B. King always.
Me: What with the flat fifth? (A Flat fifth is known as the blues note or devil's note in a musical scale.)
Carvin: Yeah man. Definitely. But still all the notes rock.
Me: Thanks Carvin. Its been a real pleasure. (And we both give a bow to the blues and B.B. king).

Well, that's that, and Ian and i catch a bus back to sweet home alabama..err croydon.
Hail the blues.

You might like to get a glimpse at www.carvinjones.com