The Blues Band - THE OFFICIAL BLUES BAND WEBSITE

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To see Dave Kelly and Paul Jones Dates please click here
To see Gary Fletcher dates please click here

Bye Bye Blues Band The Farewell Tour

Hi all you Blues Band fans. Yes I know Bye Bye Blues Band is the title of our fifth album, recorded at the end of 1982 when we split for a few years, but that’s partly why I use it now.
Having been together, aside from the above mentioned hiatus, for 42 years, our first show was towards the end of April 1979, we are finally, with quite a few regrets, calling it a day. Like most of you, we are not getting any younger and there have been some health issues over the past few years within the band. In no way do we wish to denigrate the superb performances by the various, fabulous musicians who have deputised for us, but we want to go out with a bang and at the top of our game.
Therefore, once Covid has finished wreaking havoc with the performing arts, we will be honouring as many of the shows, postponed from the past year and any which we cannot fit in we will replace with others chosen from our favourite venues. Any tickets bought over the Covid period will be honoured or refunded, as you wish.
I’m sure the other guys may wish to post something themselves, but I write this as the ‘Farewell Tour’ is taking shape and will soon be going on sale, as just that – The Blues Band Farewell Tour.
Thanks for all your support over the years – it’s been fabulous to play for you and to meet so many of you at the gigs.
Dave Kelly 20th April 2021

The individual members of The Blues Band were already held in admiration by generations of rhythm & blues fans when they formed back in 1979. Almost two and a half decades and over 16 albums later they continue to add to their growing army of followers, and it's not unheard of to find three generations from the same family at a gig.

The band are today acknowledged throughout Europe and beyond as being amongst the very finest purveyors of rhythm & blues. They have inspired numerous other blues bands, many of which have come and gone …The Blues Band have remained a constant, increasingly popular fixture, however, and all with only a modicum of help from the record business – as Gary's oft quoted comment states "the music industry doesn't bother us and we don't bother them."

This independent streak goes right back to their early days when in an unusual move the band "bootlegged" their own first album – certain copies of which are now collector's items. The 'bootlegging' came about because, having recorded their first album, the so called 'major label' which was to release it changed their minds and the band didn't have the cash to pay the studio bill. So they got 1000 copies pressed up, mastered from a copy tape that they had, signed the plain white numbered sleeves and sold them at gigs & via mail order etc. Only then did another 'major label' pick up the album and release it widely. It's a credit to both the band's talent and to their many thousands of fans' loyalty and support that they have since sustained such a long career, and brings into question the oft-spoken phrase by parents despairing of their aspiring musical offspring, "When are you going to get yourself a proper job?"

Such successful musical mavericks are fairly rare and are borne more from word-of-mouth than promotional hype. Either way they still have to cut the mustard. These boys have real feel – for their music, for their audience and for each other. Playing with maturity and passion is second nature to all of them .... Paul Jones has devoted much of a creative career spanning almost 40 years to this eternal, inspiring form - the very base and roots of rock & roll ..... Dave Kelly, with his late, great sister, Jo-Ann, introduced a whole generation to the works of Memphis Minnie, Son House, Robert Johnson and Mississippi Fred McDowell ...... the blues bit Tom McGuinness in the late '50s and has never let go - the same sharp, tight grip which still holds Rob Townsend and Gary Fletcher within its spell. So here they are, as enthusiastic as ever - Britain's finest, most skilled practitioners in the art of the blues. The Blues Band.