THREE STARS
There was no pact with the devil at a crossroads for Earl Thomas.
The Tennessee-born bluesman with the BA in music was a twenty-two-year-old dentistry student when a climbing accident left him wondering if he might survive and deciding that, if he did, he’d become a singer.
Thirty-four years on he’s winning audiences over on his first trip to Edinburgh, a self-professed 21st century bluesman who combines his classical training with an awareness of the blues’ deep connections with gospel music, a plausible way with a storyline and a natural salesman’s charm.
Whether he’ll ever deliver on the protagonist in North Country Blues’ rather shortbread tin-like intentions to find a little place to settle down in the hills of Scotland is another matter. For now, though, he’s having and creating fun with a solid, focused band with a nice line in song-framing guitar and organ riffs and a voice that, as his off-mic testifying illustrated, is strong and inflected with as much Stax soul as Chess blues.
If some of the songs he sang in this late afternoon hour were a mite cheesy, the best of them showed why he’s placed material with stars such as Etta James and he sings lines about thinking he was his woman’s rock only to discover he was just a steppin’ stone with the same level of hurt as his serially two-timed victim elsewhere does humour in detailing a list of possible mystery callers from landlord to stockbroker to lawyer. He’s possibly more suited to a slot closer to the midnight hour but broad daylight didn’t stop converts complying with his hand-clapping, arm-waving directions.
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