A small music venue staged its second-ever show last weekend.

Chris James and Martin Fletcher performed a repertoire of blues music, much to the adoration of the full-house crowd.

Chris James, originally from Scotby, together with Martin Fletcher from Morpeth, provided the frontline of acoustic guitar and vocals together with harmonica and were backed by PJ White on electric bass and the impassive but utterly impressive Finn McArdle on percussion.

The band cruised through numbers that were either self-penned by Fletcher or James or standards from their Blues heroes such as Otis Rush, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters and with the acoustic slide guitar work of James and the virtuoso harmonica of Fletcher they could be forgiven for thinking they had been transported to the Mississippi Delta of the 1930s.

Having kicked off with the wonderful jazz vocalist Jo Harrop, currently at number 16 in the USA jazz album chart, in May, Brampton’s Live@Union Lane moved to the blues for this June gig and for July will move to an intriguing mix of soul and jazz, blues, Latin, and West African music from the Gerry Richardson Organ Trio.

Newcastle-based Richardson was a founder member of The Last Exits with his good friend Sting and played the Hammond Organ on his 1996 hit album ‘Mercury Falling’.

At Union Lane, Gerry says he will be playing accessible originals together with covers of Gil Scot-Heron, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bill Withers, Mose Allison and Stevie Wonder.

Gerry Richardson on the electric organ will be joined by Paul Smith on Drums and Gary Lindley on saxophone for the July 29 concert at Live@Union Lane in Brampton.