It is difficult to express the pleasure at seeing a young talent coming through into a real star without gushing or going over the top in terms of praise but Oli Brown has set me exactly that poser.
I have been following the young man's career for the last four years and at the tender age of 21 he is taking on the role of Britain’s most exciting new Blues talent with real aplomb. The crowd at Camden’s Jazz Cafe is normally one of the worst in London for ignoring the music and getting on with their conversations and pickups but Oli had them completely in his thrall on Sunday as he delivered a set of excellent Blues, good humour and nearly two hours of great fun.
He now has the venerable talents of Ron Sayer on bass and Wayne Proctor on drums backing him up and their combined force seem to have set him free to play without the struggle of having to bring the rhythm section along with him and from the kick off of ‘Keeping My Options Open’ he was playing fluid and hot and even seems to have found his funk with a couple of new numbers. His voice has been the weaker side of his playing – at 17 he was decidedly thin and reedy – but he has strengthened and actually got a recognisable voice of his own now. It is still improving but he now comes over as a natural singer rather than just a guitarist that sings.
‘Evil Soul’ was hot and steamy with real snap and a great solo and the jazzy and Blues-lite ‘Dark And Lonely Day’ was excellent. ‘Mr Wilson’ is a new number and still in development but the very fact that they were prepared to throw an unheard number into the middle of the set says plenty about their confidence as a band and the number itself sounds as though it has a lot of potential as a future showstopper.
He was working with the audience as well on Sunday and had most of the female side of the crowd sighing as he described his love life on an acoustic version of ‘Complicated’ and then got them all singing along to Bill Withers ‘No Diggity’. He encored with ‘Roxanne’ and a belting ‘Black Betty’ before leaving the crowd wanting even more.
Oli Brown is only two albums in to what is looking like a long and strong career and if he keeps developing this well it won’t be long before we are hailing the English Joe Bonamassa. Still developing but at what a rate!
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