Blues News #619

A few years back (well, quite a few years actually) I wandered down to Warrnambool to take in a gig at The Loft by Marco Goldsmith and Blue Heat – a band that makes the trip well worth it.
In The Loft and doing a support for the gig was a very young harp player by the name of Eddy Boyle, who had billed himself as Fast Eddy.
Initially I was interested to see how matter of fact the crowd was treating him. Usually if someone this young is playing, there’s comments about “youth prodigy”, “fast rising light” and the like.
This crowd was treating Eddy as a competent, seasoned player, and I soon found out why. “Fast Eddy” is really no joke as a performance name – his playing was sensational! Yes, it was fast, but it was more than that, this was skill, a very high level of skill and his speed was just the icing on the cake.
Tom Richardson (also coming from Victoria’s south-west) has often played with Eddy Boyle and they both appeared at the 2010 Australian Blues Music Festival.
Eddy formed his band, Blues on the Boyle at the young age of 20. They specialise in rhythm and blues heavily featuring harmonica (no surprise there!). They play a blend of original material and classics from blues masters such as Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, William Clark and Junior Parker.
Eddy gives a retro style to his song-writing and his harmonica playing adds a rich and vibrant depth to this jumping blues band. Eddy’s dad builds hot rods which is evident in some of his songs such as ’51 Ford’.
In 2010 they issued their first CD, Blues Harp Joyride. Their new CD, Tin Sandwich Stomp has featured in Anthony Moulay’s top 25 chart for five months straight.
Their unique old school style covering a wide range of blues went down a treat at Broadbeach Blues in 2013.
Eddy and Blues on the Boyle are appearing at Sleepy Hollow Blues Club on August 23rd. This should be quite a night!
The band includes Phil Jones on guitar. Phil has played in Starliners, Flat Foot Shakers and Dusty Rhodes and the Dangerous Curves. They will be playing in Geelong later in August and some earth shattering bass will be provided on the night by Sweet Felicia.
Regular readers of this column will be very pleased to hear that Greg Dodd’s event Blues for Lost Souls was standing room only. From a modest $5,500 raised at the first event in 2013, it looks like the event will raise more than $34,000 this year. Maybe we can get Greg an OAM!
This is an event that the whole blues community has rallied round and the donations of items for the auction, along with musicians volunteering their time and virtuosity to the event has been wonderful.
I am sure that Greg will put this on again in 2016, and maybe this is something that we should put on down here.
 
Written by John (Dr John) Lamp
Proudly presented by the Sleepy Hollow Blues Club