Steve Hill

Ok, let’s get the elephant out of the room. Steve Hill is a one man band playing guitar, percussion and singing. So big wup. He is also one of the best rock bands around at the minute.

I saw Steve last year, supporting Wishbone Ash, and this album represents just what I saw that night. He sings with a rough edged baritone and plays some stunning guitar, both slide and picked. He also plays drums better than most drummers I’ve heard in a while.

Musically this is some damn fine Blues/rock, loaded with spirit and heart. He doesn’t try and fake anything so the guitar and drums are perfectly in sync and listening to a track such as ‘The Collector’ you can hear the way he builds a song from a fine piece of slide and adding the drums to create a multi-layered sound that stands up even without his vocal, He gradually builds the speed and the impact of the song and it leaves you breathless listening to it.

“I wanted to capture a live album that featured all the energy of my live shows,” says Steve. There are no overdubs on this live album… I play everything myself in real time. There are no tapes or loops. What you hear is what you get.”

The songs all stand up, be they rockers such as ‘Damned’ or slow burning Blues like ‘The Ballad of Johnny Wabo’ or the semi-acoustic ‘Emily’. The only cover on the album is a killer version of ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ with a burning guitar line and stunning solo.

Steve Hill is playing some damn fine Blues and rock. Looking forward to seeing him with Danny Bryant next Wednesday