From the Nightshift gig listings: “To be considered ‘young’ in the world of blues can sometimes mean being any age under about 50, but Norfolk’s Oli Brown really is young – still a tender 21 and already on to his third album. His first, Open Road, came out when he was just 17, marking him out early on as one of the UK’s new breed of blues heroes, while drawing admiring comparisons to Rory Gallagher and Steve Cropper. Its 2010 follow-up, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, featured regularly in end of year blues round-ups and found Oli winning Best Male Singer and Best Young Artist at the British Blues Awards.

Since then his reputation has continued to grow, winning Best Album at last year’s Blues Awards and another Best Young Artist gong, while his latest album, Here I Am, features cameos from Paul Jones and Dani Wilde among others. Brown also achieved that blues seal of approval when he briefly replaced Rocky Athos in John Mayall’s band. Praise from the venerable likes of Johnny Winter, Walter Trout and Joe Bonamassa attest to his still growing talent, which mostly avoids the pitfall of displaying clever fret technique over real blues soul, instead relying on simple riffs and rolling grooves to get his music across.

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