Joanne's name seems to be on a lot of tongues lately as the band spreads their fan base throughout the Midlands and hopefully Nationally, having already played at Ronnie Scott's in Birmingham. It was noticeable that there were several faces from the local music scene at The Dragon tonight eager to witness, first hand, this young, blonde talent.
The Joanne Shaw Taylor band are Joanne - lead guitar, Mark Drewitt - Rhythm Guitar and vocals, Phil Kingston - keyboards, Andy Kirkland - bass guitar and Phil Brittle - Drums. It's hard to believe that Joanne is still only 16. The band play standard electric blues alongside their own, original material.
Although most of the interest is with Joanne she is remarkably laid back, (maybe a little shy?) only fronting the stage during solos. Mark supports Joanne wonderfully and in many ways, not only by providing excellent rhythm guitar and quality (beyond his years) vocals, but in on-stage technical matters. Andy provides pumping bass throughout; sometimes basic blues patterns, sometimes verging on funky. Phil's keyboard, always there, always tight and then coming through with well phrased solos. The one real extrovert in the band has to be the other Phil on drums; constantly working - not just his drums but also himself as he rises from his stool with lunges and gestures, really into it all.
The band have many original numbers including 'Heat', 'Your Time Has Come' and my own favourite 'Blackest Day', a slow, well worked blues with great vocals from Mark. Oh, and then there's an instrumental slot where Joanne takes front of stage to introduce, slightly timidly, two or three numbers of high complexity backed only by bass and drums. This is fast, furious stuff where technique rules. Joanne just takes it in her stride and it certainly makes the everyone take notice, as her hand flashes up, down and across the fretboard, eyes closed she barely dares to look out at her audience.
If I had one (constructive) criticism it would be that Joanne's guitar style is sometimes a little busy but I'm sure that, as her confidence grows and she develops, her playing will take on new emotion and she will just continue to improve naturally; she has all the potential and ability to be enormously successful.
The Joanne Shaw Taylor Band are a fine young band with enormous potential and are certainly worth getting off your butt to go and see. So do it!! Be there at the beginning!!
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