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Blues
festival to host legendary KZN musicians at The Stables Wine Estate
Nottingham Road - A blues band specially convened by veteran
guitarist Gordon Jackson for the popular annual Blues Festival at The
Stables Wine Estate will offer lovers of this music form an idyllic way
to get into the festive season on Saturday 13th December.
Jackson
has put together a band with iconic Durban bass player Errol “Smelly”
Fellows” that is aimed at pooling the best blues talent available in the
region for the Blues Festival at the wine farm outside Nottingham Road.
Fellow Salty Dog band member Graeme Buckle will be on drums, Olli Hart
on keyboards and blues harmonica player Peter Wilson rounding off the
line-up for the Saturday afternoon gig, which
Jackson has promised will delve into a wide variety of blues styles, and
is then likely to become more rock-orientated as the afternoon turns to
evening.
“Salty Dog was born on 1 November 1996,” says Fellows. “It was at a pub called Thirstys. We
realised there was something in common, so we put together a playlist
and that evening we got up and played, and it was great! That’s how
Salty Dog was started.”
Jackson cut his teeth as a teenager playing the nightclub circuit in
what was then Rhodesia before moving south with the band “Close Apart”
and has performed extensively since then, including a stint with the
backing band at the legendary Crazy Horse cabaret venue in Paris.
Fellows, whose penchant for performing on stage without any shoes and
wearing bright red socks has made him instantly recognisable, is one of
the most sought-after bassists in the country and has just completed a
national tour supporting blues guitarist Dan Patlansky.
Like the rest of the band that has been assembled for the Blues Festival
at The Stables Wine Estate, Fellows has been a professional musician for
decades.
“I played my first gig in 1968,” recalls Fellows. “It was terrifying. We
played to an all-girl audience at a convent in Grahamstown and I was
frozen on the stage with fright.”
“In my first month as a professional in
Port Elizabeth my pay was a total of R100, but then a
beer cost 20 cents then,” recalls Fellows. “Since then in have been
based in
East London,
Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, and all over the
Western Cape,
London, Greece, doing what I love most – playing music.”
The partnership between Fellows and Jackson has been particularly close,
and through their many collaborations and the success of their band
Salty Dog, they have won many fans and admirers.
Jackson and Fellows immediately list one memorable night on the main
stage at Splashy Fen in 2003 as his greatest gig ever. “It was
phenomenal,” says Jackson of the expanded Salty Dog line-up that turned
in a three hour non-stop set that is still talked about to this day.
Fellows is also adamant that he will not change his red-socked, on-stage
habit. “I hate shoes. They are so restricting!,” he says. “Actually it
has become a bit of a nightmare because my red socks are getting very
tired, and I cannot for love or money find adult-sized red anklet socks
anywhere!”
The friends have promised a rollicking set of well-known blues
standards, laced with some jazz and then leading to more
party-orientated rock as the evening approaches.
“If you add up the collective professional experience of the band that
we have assembled for the Blues Festival at The Stables Wine Estate on
Saturday the 13th, it comes to around 250 years!” boggled
Fellows. “And us old bullets can rock!”
The Stables Wine Estate Blues Festival takes place on Saturday 13
December, starting at 12h30. Entry to the (full) day’s programme costs
R95. Spaces are limited and tickets can be reserved with Christelle on
033
266 6781 or on
christelle@stableswine.co.za.
More information is available at
www.stableswine.co.za
ENDS |
