Beggar Joe

Beggar Joe

Genres: blues, jazz, soul, blues rock

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About Beggar Joe

In a musical world forever dominated by passing fad and fickle fashion, Beggar Joe cannot help but stand out as something special, the real thing even, a blues ,folk and soul powerhouse so steeped in the roots of the genre they could be the offspring of pure Mississippi Delta stalwarts. There are five of them, they are in their late 20s and early 30s, and they hail, for the most part, from Manchester. Upon the imminent release of their self-titled debut album, they might just become your favourite new band. Produced by Al Stone (Jamiroquai, Bob Dylan, Corinne Bailey Rae among countless others) and inspired by BB King, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, but also with echoes of an acoustic Paul Weller here, a reinvigorated Gomez there, "Beggar Joe" is one of those rare things, an album so assured of its time and place in the world, of its understated power to move, that it sounds as if it has been around forever. It very likely will be. Their story starts five years ago, at Salford University, where four of them were studying music. Singer and guitarist Jon Kenzie had been a music fanatic since the age of 10, more in awe of, say, Muddy Walters than he was anything in the current pop scene. Within five years, he had found his true voice to go with his passion, and never looked back. Keyboardist Justin Shearn had picked up his father's love of the blues from an early age, and passed many hours, days and weeks sitting at the piano steadfastly honing his craft. Bassist Andy Brown, perhaps one of the few tree surgeon/heavy-metal fanatics, realised, by his mid 20s, that blues inspired more in him than metal ever did and turned, almost instinctively, to the double bass, rarely listening to Metallica again. And drummer Chris Butler was so passionate about his own instrument that drumming is all he has ever done. He even set up his own custom-made drum business. Each member gravitated towards one another through a shared love of the greats, and spent the next several years playing together, learning from one another and gradually becoming the most solid of foundations. But three years on, they decided they were still missing one key component. Enter Rome Mossabir, whom they didn't pluck from Salford Uni at all. Mossabir, who is 42, is an astoundingly gifted percussionist who has travelled the world via music, studying, and perfecting, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, Cuban and samba styles. When he arrived into Beggar Joe, the band were complete. They were good now, properly good. And they knew it. "And so it was only a matter of time, really," says Jon Kenzie, "before things at last started to happen for us." Never the kind of band to become an overnight sensation, Beggar Joe instead continued to grow organically. They built up quite a local following, performing regularly on the live circuit in Manchester and, from time to time, even busking on the streets. Given their strong local reputation, they were regularly spotted by management teams, each of whom had big plans for the band. One of them flew them out to Texas, to gain experience and play live, while another afforded them songwriting sessions in Italy. They were even, once, invited to play in the southern Chinese town of Canton, where they performed alongside local bands as well as, Kenzie recalls with a grin, "magicians and tap dancers." The frontman would also help swell the band's kitty intermittently by lending his mellifluous rasp to adverts for Italian TV. All of which helped keep the band a functioning operative, but by now what they really needed was the arrival of a true visionary to help them onto the next stage. In time, they found two. Chet Mehmet is a music sales and distribution guru who discovered the band at one of their London gigs. He was impressed by them, so impressed that he then travelled up to Manchester with record producer Al Stone to watch them play live again. Stone shared his friend's enthusiasm to such an extent that the pair decided to set up their own record label, C.A.T. Records, and made Beggar Joe their first signing with Stone at the producer's desk. "Recording with someone like Al was just incredible," Kenzie says now. "He gave us free rein to do what we wanted to do, but he also brought out the best in us." Of course he did; this is a man, after all, who knows how to bring out the best in many people - just ask Joss Stone, Bjork, Tina Turner. And the results here speak for themselves, a debut album of brooding, beautiful tunes that manage to spin gold out of the blues, Kenzie's voice a thing of raw wonder that is buoyed and sustained by a band who know just how to create a musical atmosphere, and then sustain it with uncommon subtlety. And that is perhaps what is most impressive about this record, its subtlety, its slow burning languor, and an overriding conviction that it doesn't need to shout to be heard - safe in the knowledge that it will be heard. Al Stone has presided over many records that have sold in the multimillions, and so there is something encouraging, is there not, that to launch his and Chet's label, he has not gone simply for the fast buck, the quick return, but instead a band who will be here for the long haul, a band that is something special, the real thing even. Which brings us back to where we started, the introduction to Beggar Joe, a modern-day blues ,folk and soul powerhouse, your favourite new band.

Taken from Last.fm

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