When Ramon Goose – “the cream of the UK’s emerging blues stars” – and Ed Vans began to forge a hip new fusion of Delta blues and hip-hop grooves, they needed a convincing blues vocalist to ride with them on their ambitious musical journey. They found that man in singer and rapper Jay Nicholls, whose voice evokes the very spirit of the Delta. With the solid addition of consummate blues and “in-the-pocket” hip-hop drummer Paul Francis – a veteran of gigs with BB King’s band – Nublues was born.

The band was discovered by Grammy Award-winning artist Chris Thomas King, known to many for his performance in O Brother, but well known to blues lovers as a great performer in his own right. When King signed Nublues to his Louisiana-based label 21st Century Blues Records for America, he made them the first UK blues act to sign to a US label in over 20 years. American music lovers can be proud that their heritage, the blues, continues to evolve not just in New Orleans, the Delta or Chicago but as far away as the UK. It’s over 100 years since WC Handy “discovered the blues” at that railroad station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, but this band proves that blues has a future at least as exciting as its past.

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