Steve J Curtis

HelenB

With the hype of the credit crunch and our summer weather - raining, which brought forth a weather warning from the met office, the scene at The Riga music bar Westcliff on Sea was of a small but very appreciative audience.

They were there to see and hear Steve J Curtis. Steve is a fantastic musician and he has a great band around him. The audience was in for a treat listening to material Steve has produced on his two albums 'small Mercies' and the latest one 'Out Of The Woods' the band also played music not yet released to be used for the next album which they start to record in the autumn.

Steve hails form a Country background, learning to play guitar with his father and travelling with him playing on stage. The songs that he writes have a country edge but also rock, blues and even a little jazz. I enjoy every genre of music so long as it is put together and played well, but when I talk to fans of Steve there is a resounding "I do love it when he plays blues" – which he did on Friday, there is one piece in particular called 'This is Goodbye' that has a wonderful guitar solo one could almost call sexy, except for when the sound engineer at the back of the room appeared to hear something different to the rest of us and drown the guitar out in favour of Nigel playing rhythm on keyboard.

Have to say I did query this with Steve the next day as I thought it was Nigel's doing - sorry Nigel it seems that the whole band were oblivious of what happened. Still not long to wait Friday 18th July The Essex Arms Brentwood - the band will be supported by JJ Zarbo

For further information on Steve and the band have a look at his web site http://www.myspace.com/stevejcurtis Helen