What is this thing called Blues anyway?

Anything can be blues if you approach it from a blues mentality. It isn't a question of scales and bar counts - ancient blues takes very little notice of such modern niceties. Irrespective of what they teach in school, it isn't all misery and it isn't all in a minor key. It's more a question of attitude - putting the emotion into the music rather than indulging in the cleverness of it all. Sometimes the subject can tend to the darker side of life, with a considerable part of the canon concerning itself with the murdering of various relations and the dire consequences of the same. Wine, women and cars also make regular appearances, but whatever the songs are about nothing gets people moving like driving Rhythm and Blues played with feeling.

It's a broad church, the blues. It covers a good part of jazz, almost all of rock (the good stuff anyway) and has a big crossover with country music. The best blues takes a bit of everything and gives back more than the total of its parts.

Riverside play blues to entertain and to feel good!

You'll hear songs by Muddy Waters, Dr Feelgood, ZZ Top, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Bobby Parker, J B Lenoir, Little Walter, Otis Rush............. and even ACDC.

Go on... tell us it's not blues....

What people say.....

"Best blues band I've seen since the Feelgoods in '76" ...a satisfied customer of the Real Ale Tent GDSF...

"Brilliant band, had the place rockin'!" - The Chequers - summer 2011

"Do you know any Bananarama?" - a diserning music lover in a pub on The Waterside