A tour of the Blues

Award-winning band Blueswater are the hosts, and with the tagline “100 years of blues, 90 minutes to play it” they will take the audience on a whistle-stop tour of this musical form.

The band’s frontman and show’s producer is Felipe Schrieberg, a Californian who emigrated to Scotland to study whisky distillation. The band formed at St Andrew’s University.

“I started off playing jazz music for a year and didn’t like it all. Blues is pretty straightforward which is what I like about it. That and it is easy to see how it has influenced countless other genres of music.

“Our show really does go through the genre, it is an exploration of the origins of blues and how it has changed around the world, like the Chicago sound and British blues.”

The composition of the band changes quite often. Officially a six-piece, it sometimes performs with as few as three people but has performed as a twelve piece on the Edinburgh Fringe. The standard lineup has two guitars, a bass, harmonica and drums, with Felipe on vocals and sometimes a bit of oboe.

“The show features a lot of songs by different artists,” added Felipe. “It is an excellent starting point for getting into the blues as we cover so much ground.” Hardly surprising considering the wealth of performers to have appeared over the years, from the early delta bluesmen to contemporary performers like Seasick Steve and Jack White.

The blues movement lost one of its leading lights recently with the death of BB King, so has that influenced the show?

Felipe said: “I was watching BB King’s performance live at Sing Sing recently and that just totally blew me away. So yeah, there is a bit of that in our show.”

Blues! is at Cumbernauld Theatre this Saturday, June 6, starting at 7.45. Tickets, £12 full price, are available on 01236 732887.