If you are the kind of person who tends to get picky you might just raise an eyebrow at the fact that the British Blues Quartet currently appears to sport six members... and one them is German.

But there’s no need to get pedantic about these things. The fact is of course that brilliant Bournemouth-born keyboard wizard Zoot Money and the two Colins,(Allen on drums and Hodgkinson on bass) are regularly joined by special guests - vocalist Maggie Bell and slide guitar wizard Dave Kelly. Meanwhile previous BBQ guitarist Miller Anderson has been replaced by Hamburg-based Frank Diez. The result is phenomenal.

With Bell strutting her stuff and delivering magnificent soulful blues vocals and Kelly and Money playing and singing their hearts out too, the band has an awesome front line. With superbly powerful and rhythmic bass from Hodgkinson, rock solid drumming from Allen and soaring lead guitar from new boy Diez, this is an outfit to be reckoned with.

Heaven knows they’ve had enough practice - the combined age of the band is around 400 - but this group really is something special. They delivered a set rich in vintage blues, rock and R&B. Great arrangements and inspired moments of improvisation breathed new life into numbers like Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City, Muddy Waters’ Hoochie Coochie Man and Al Green’s Take Me To The River. Brilliant stuff!

Jeremy Miles