Long-time Shipston-on-Stour resident Laurence Jones finally made his debut at Temperance Café in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire supported by his fiancé Amy Eftekhari.
Laurence did all his musical growing up in South Warwickshire and Birmingham, firstly invited to play by luminaries such as Steve Walwyn (Dr. Feelgood) to pubs such as The Castle Inn, Warwick where long term fans Nigel & Judith Motthead were one of the few to first hear him play the blues. He studied music at the Academy of Contemporary music in Birmingham (the late Matt Long studied in the same academy but in Guildford).
He met his fiancé Amy Eftekhari at his album launch for his ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ at the Assembly Rooms in Leamington Spa in 2015 and she was supporting him a year later when he launched his blues-rock classic album ‘Take Me High’ which took place in The Townsend Hall, Shipston-on-Stour. Many of the audience had been at either or both shows, being the loyalty of his fans.
We first had an acoustic set from Amy Eftekhari, with the guitars used by Amy & Laurence being supplied by PRS guitars, with the first song being a just written number called ‘Patience’ which was a lovely melodic song sung by passion by Amy with great guitar accompaniment.
Amy used to be based in London, before she met Laurence, where she was a session singer with artists such as Beverly Knight & Josh Stone as well as singing at Windsor Castle for Queen Elizabeth II with a gospel choir. So, the next song from her session singer days was ‘What’s Going On’ with the audience encouraged to sing along with.
As Amy stated it has been 15 years between her previous EP album ‘All the Words’ and the recently released EP ‘This Moment’ by Laurence’s Ron Records company (named in honour of his late Grandfather who was a big fan).
She followed this with a slower evocative song ‘My Dream’ with passionate vocals and great guitar accompaniment about just making it through the day.
Then she finished with Bob Dylan’s ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ with Amy commenting about the Dylan t-shirt that Adrian Gains was wearing that evening whilst he was going the sound and ‘Your Eyes’ a new song about when life’s crazy and a struggle and was written at a very low point in Laurence’s battle with Crohn’s disease. It is an upbeat song helping her supporting Laurence.
After a short break Laurence took to the stage at the intimate Temperance and kicked off with ‘One Life’ an up-tempo song with great slide guitar and powerful blues vocals, and then switched straight into ‘Get Back Up’.
He then gave us the story that when he was on tour supporting Status Quo he was in his dressing room noodling on his guitar with a Quo song when Francis Rossi knocked on the door. He exclaimed ‘Cheeky Bugger’ about Laurence playing one of his songs!
‘Ain’t Coming Back No More’ was played with gritty vocals, great blues guitar accompanied with a foot drum with lots of stage presence. Then we had the title track off his new solo album ‘On My Own’ written about his fight with Crohn’s disease which meant at one point he didn’t go out for 8 months. He lost a lot of weight and it is only since he went on an Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet that he was able to put on 3 stones in weight. This blues song has excellent finger picking and guitar wizardry, again with the foot drum.
Then we had a Robert Johnson song ‘Come on in My Kitchen’ which was one of the songs he reviewed in his research for a much more bluesy album with its deep south sound with lots of slide guitar and train tempo style with New Orleans style vocals.
Jimi Hendrix has been one of Laurence’s hero’s but this time his ‘Voodoo Child’ was given an acoustic version still with the same power and great vocals. Then we had Laurence’s first song ‘Thunder in the Sky’ which is continually voted his fans favourite song. It was a totally different treatment to his normal electric band version with its fast guitar picking on his acoustic guitar.
The next section included ‘I’m Giving Up’ with great rhythm with spectacular picking with evocative vocals with foot drum, ‘Life I Made’ with a switch of guitar and a more bluesy slide feel with strong Deep South vocals, slide guitar, with a bit of three chord Status Quo in the middle. We also had ‘Change My Ways’ and his favourite track from the album ‘Do You Feel the Same’ sung with passion & power.
The last tracks in the set were ‘Before You Accuse Me’ with great rocking bluesy guitar tempo and smiles of enjoyment from Laurence as he worked the Temperance audience with audience participation. He also thanked Amy for all her support during this difficult period in his life.
He finished with ‘Beautiful’ which was written about the support he gets from Amy during these Crohn’s disease episodes.
Then after a standing ovation he invited Amy back to the stage to play ‘This Moment’ the title track from her EP which was recorded as a duet with its lovely dual harmonies and great blues guitar playing. This was a brilliant climax to a powerful evening of the Blues.