THE RAILWAY, GREENFIELD

JULY 21 2011

Angelo Palladino is an enigma. The fact that he’s a blues guitarist/songwriter and isn’t from the deep south of the United States only compounds the need to ask a few questions. Of course, there are no hard or fast rules that state good blues necessarily has to emanate from Mississippi or Georgia, but Rawdon via Stepney Green seems to be pushing credibility a little too far. Yet here he is; in your face and telling you what’s what and not accepting any argument.

After a career that has spanned the best part of four decades he showed, in the almost impossibly tiny confines of the Railway pub in Greenfield (just across the Pennines from Palladino’s Yorkshire base camp), just how a British bluesman can, and would always sound if there were any justice in the world.

The music that Palladino makes comes not only from the rough post-WWII East End background he grew up in, but also a real blues/rock ‘n’ roll tradition. Palladino takes his influences and, like any musician worth his salt, uses them to travel to a different place entirely. But although the lyrical destination he takes his captive audience to is not a pleasant one, it’s a road very much travelled, and probably understood, only by Palladino himself.

Songs like the heartbreaking “Limehouse,” the claustrophobic “Just Can’t Sleep,” and a bone-breaking version of “Twilight Blues” all serve up some lyrically haunting visions (even in a pub setting on a nondescript summer evening).

Yet the music is the antithesis of the lyrics. The melody and finesse abounds, the groove factor palpable, and the joy on the faces of the assembled obvious. See what I mean about enigma?

Like all good musicians should, Palladino lays down a musical and lyrical gauntlet at the feet of his audience and, judging by the reaction of this crowd, they picked up that challenge and ran with it.

If I were you, I would too.

Rob - Guest Reporter