Sam started her first set at 3pm to (unfortunately) a half full bar but after belting out a few covers by the likes of Memphis Slim and Bessie Smith, the audience took note and paid plenty of attention.
Sam, AKA ‘Little Mean Momma’ has been performing and writing for many years and has played various Blues festivals, written and produced her own CD’s and played on the Paul Jones show on BBC Radio 2.
The mood in the bar was pretty laid back and Sam read the audience well, chatting to the crowd between every song. During the first set we heard covers by ‘Ray Charles’ and ‘Bessie Smith’, along with her own songs which were superb in their own right. Sam has written a couple of songs about the world we live in, which I thoroughly enjoyed as they came from the heart and didn’t make me feel guilty! I thought her song ‘Give your love to the world’ was brilliant.
Sam played for about an hour and following a short break kicked off again, only this time to a larger audience with an excellent rendition of John Lee Hooker’s ‘Boom Boom’ - as great as I’ve ever heard it done by a female performer.
During the second set, Sam got Blues Bar stalwart Paul Middleton up for a duet of ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and a comedy version of ‘Moondance’.
Sam continued with more fantastic instrumental boogie piano playing, some excellent original tunes and marvellous covers by the likes of Ruth Brown and Aretha Franklin. I was thrilled to hear ‘Miss you like the devil’ by ‘Slim Harpo’ for the encore with Paul Middleton.
If you didn’t make it to that gig then you missed a treat! However, you can see Sam playing with ‘Druce & Jones’ at the New Roscoe in Leeds on 3rd July and failing that, check out her website for future dates:
www.sampayne.co.uk
See you at the next gig!
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