Dave KellyGerry Cooper

Tickets: Members £10; non-Members £13.  Buy tickets

Dave Kelly http://www.thebluesband.net/Bio.html

Dave Kelly has been at the forefront of the British blues scene for almost five decades.
For the past 30 years the singer and bottle-neck blues guitar player has been a leading member of The Blues Band and, as Keighley audiences will discover this month, Dave's got no intention of stopping yet.
He plays a rare solo gig at Keighley Blues Club on May 31st.
Dave, whose roots lie in Mississippi country blues, has spent 30 years sharing vocals in The Blues Band with Paul Jones. His first professional work was in the genre in the early 1960s when he started performing, still as a school kid, with big sister Jo-Ann , at the Half Moon in Putney.
His style and feel for Mississippi music led to him regularly being asked to perform as part of the touring bands for American Blues greats, accompanying the likes of Son House, Buddy Guy, Big Joe Williams, John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell and Howlin Wolf when they visited Europe.
From then on he performed with a huge variety of artists in a variety of musical styles, though he is predominantly known for his work with The Blues Band .
He has just put together a Dave Kelly, Friends and Family album featuring tracks with Jo-Ann Kelly , Eric Bibb, Long John Baldry, Chris Barber and Paul Jones.

Gerry Cooper http://www.reverbnation.com/gerrycooper

Geordie Gerry (now an adopted Yorkshireman to be fair!) returns to the Club for the first time in 3 years.  Gerry plays 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, a Michael Messer Lightning resophonic guitar, mandolin, ukulele, harmonica and bass. He has even been known to pick 5-string banjo, but not in the presence of ladies. He cites his main influences as Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Sleepy John Estes, the Memphis Jug Band, Roger Sutcliffe, Steve Phillips, Stefan Grossman, Michael Messer, and the Goons.

Purely by chance rather than design, both Dave and Gerry will be performing at the Bedale Acoustic Music Festival tomorrow when Dave will headline and Gerry is (ahem!) elsewhere on the bill!

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