Newton-Blues.com

Hi folks - I’m Steve Newton and a very warm welcome to my blues site, recently set up by my wizard of a nephew - Scott (check: the newts.net), whom I refer to affectionately as ‘the maestro’. Well, I have been playing the guitar since I was about 19 or 20 years old, when I had the good fortune at Leeds University in about 1970 to rent a flat above that great blues guitarist Dave Speight, who today performs as ‘Dave Speight and the Snake Kings‘.

I had this great blues riff wafting up from the basement flat and I was hooked. Luckily for me, Dave was one of those generous human beings who would give of his time and he helped me get started. For anyone who remembers Leeds University from those days it was of course about The Packhorse pub and The Eldon, as well as The Coburg where Stefan Grossman used to play occasionally. At the union in those days I was lucky enough to see the Pretty Things live and was at the legendary Who concert preserved for ever on vinyl. Although since that time I always played the blues, my main interest was as a painter (newton-art.com) and as a writer, so I didn’t do much public performance. However, one time I was sat picking the old box in the garden and my dear daughter Alex taped it on her cassette player. Two or three years later when she had become a professional ballet dancer (she has recently completed a tour with Regensburg ballet company in Germany and has toured with Birmingham Royal and worked with Mavin Koo amongst others), she told me how the other dancers used to love grooving along to my raw rhythms and asked me if I would make another cassette. Overhearing this my great son Keith (snowboarder and tropical tank builder extraordinaire) told me to make a CD instead. As his sound engineering skills were so good he set me up a little recording studio via my pc and I made a makeshift and spontaneous blues compilation. This was 3 or 4years ago.

The CD was laying around on a table one day and was casually picked up by the great entertainer Andy O’Neal (aka Gibbo Gibson) who contacted me and invited me to support his blues combo Blues on Tap (with that great electric blues practitioner John Skelton) on tour. Since then we have toured pubs and clubs around N.Yorkshire, N.E.Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire and I have, I think got much stronger as a performer and blues player as a result. (see gig guide 2007).

Playing round the clubs I use a Martin acoustic C-16GTE with the Fishman inbuilt unit for amp control. I bought this to perform because it is light and easy to handle which is essential when dodging the flying bottles that often seem to whiz past our heads in some of the salubrious establishments that we find ourselves!

I also use a beautiful small body 12 fret Martin which I bought in 1978. I also own a Yamaha FG2000 which I bought from Kitchens in Leeds (now defunct, I think), way back in 1974. This has a much battered and well-worn carcass. Although I rarely use this instrument these days - it has a great deep resonating sound, but is a bit unwieldy and cumbersome to play when standing.

It was gratifying to see in a recent copy of Acoustic magazine that Bert Jansch uses virtually the same model. (Yamaha LL11). This is Bert’s current favourite and like mine is an early model with a solid Indian rosewood back and sides. There is a contact mike on his with a piezo, two in combination. He uses the contact mike and turns the other off, giving what he says is the most natural-sounding pickup he’s ever heard. He usually fits a set of bronze 11-52s, but takes the bass down to 54 to give more clout.

As for my music - well I play all blues and often use a Big Bill Broonzy/Mance Lipscomb sort of monotone thumped and muffled base rhythm. Influences are very wide and I write a lot of my own material as well as playing those great standard blues by the likes of Broonzy, Elmore James, Snooks Eaglin, Robert Wilkins, Robert Petway…etc..etc. I also love to blues up some great 40s and 50s tunes such as I’ll be Your Sweetheart or I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter and so on. My eldest son George is a highly inventive musician and has his own great Marshall set up. He can play the blues - but a whole lot more as well. He is not only a brilliant researcher into the arcane realms of linguistics (he took a Masters when very young), but also has the dubious claim to fame of having a grunge hit record some years ago with the famous grunge band Crawl Space. Now of maturer years his aspirations also tend to lead him to the snowboarding paradises in the Pyrenees. Well we will be adding stuff to my site in the near future - for instance I played Faldingworth Live last night and have some video to update for you. I have clips on YouTube - as you will see. So keep posted - and keep the faith with those blues!