I was very surprised to see our houseband guest Clyde Morris sitting alone in our function room upon my arrival on Monday evening, but there he was full of enthusiasm just as I always remember him. It had been a long time since I'd shared the stage with Clyde, but it was such a pleasure to hear him perform some straightforward no-nonsense Blues which made my life somewhat easier in these difficult times. Although Clyde was enthusiastic about appearing as our houseband guest, he was somewhat worried about performing to a live audience after being in lockdown for so long, but all his fears were quickly dashed as soon as he played the first few bars on his opening set.

Clyde gave us six numbers in the opening set ably supported by our MC Mike Dearing and Reg of course. Another pleasing aspect was to see another well-attended audience of Jammers & Listeners, who were not slow in giving rapturous applause – and rightly so. On quite a busy night we just about had enough time to hear three more number at the end of the night from Clyde and the houseband – most of which can be heard on this week’s batch of mp3s. Our thanks to Clyde Morris and I won’t leave it too long before we see him back here as our houseband guest – that’s for sure.

As previously mentioned, another sizeable audience included several harp-players and the welcome return of bass-player Martin Heath, who we thought had deserted us for good. It transpired that Martin was unaware of our restarting the jam way back in August. Unfortunately I didn’t have any contact details of Martin to enable me to alert him of us re-starting the jam after the long lockdown - but better late than never, so pleased to see such a good bass-player back here again.

Nice to see Raf making good use of our keyboard at last. We hardly ever set up the keyboard due to us never attracting keyboard players, but very happy to set it up if we know it will be used – nice one, Raf.

Also good to see Billy Sharpe back here with his usual praise and enthusiasm for the Blues jam. We would’ve liked to have given him an extra set, but time didn’t allow it. Our praise also to all our Jammers. Time to call…

The Roll Of Honour:

• Sax, Harp+Vocals - Phil Hughes
• Guitar+Vocals - Billy Sharpe, Danny Sugarman, Mike Dearing and Dave Richards
• Harp - Ned Phillips and Laz
• Keys - Raf Azzara
• Guitar - Ian Hammond, Richard Stenhouse, Raf Azzara, Dean, Chris Greene and Doug Baker
• Bass - Martin Heath, Richard Stenhouse, Mike Dearing and Dave Taylor
• Drums - John Ward, Marc Turner and Reg Patten

My thanks to everyone who chipped in to help set up and pack away the equipment, not forgetting our thanks to Queen Bee Vera for arranging those six jam sets and getting behind the camera. A fresh batch of mp3s is already uploaded by our wondrous Webmaster Ken Cumberlidge.

Next time at Leytonstone Blues Jam:
Next week our guest will be Andy Robinson, who will be travelling down from the far reaches of Essex (Frinton to be precise). Hopefully he will be rewarded by performing in front of a huge audience of Jammers & Listeners. Please arrive early and grab a seat.

Something for the weekend:
Still no live music at The Manor Arms for the time being although the pub is still open. But live music continues at the Southgate Club when their featured band this week (Friday 21st Feb) will be “Tim Penn & the Second Line” supported by “That Blue Patch”. For further details, check out: The St Harmonica's Website

Thanking All Our Jammers & Listeners,