UK Blues award winner Stevie Watts brought a new band with new material for its debut performance at Temperance in Leamington Spa. Keyboard playing Stevie was still basking in the European Blues Challenge 2025 win as part of the Alice Armstrong band in Split, Croatia and was joined by fellow band mate Olly Knight-Smith on guitar. The band also featured Grant Allardyce on drums and Shanade Morrow on vocals.
The new material was a blend of funk, blues & soul was presented after only a couple of rehearsals (one for the instrumental and one with singer Shanade) and they started with an instrumental set which kicked off with a Lou Donaldson song ‘Turtle Walk’ followed by the first of the new songs with ‘Kingsmith’ inspired by a Jimmy Smith lick with funky keys, heavy drums and great guitar licks.
With Stevie just back from a 5-hour drive from Cornwall (and 5 hours sleep) he was living off coffee to keep the vibe going!
Next up we had a song ‘High Heeled Flippers’ that was originally written in 2018 but has now been re-arranged with a great off beat sound with wailing guitars, great keys with solid drums.
The next track ‘Not 82 bpm’ was a skit about the tempo which might or might not have been 82bpm with its slower funky beat led by Stevie on keys with great support from Grant on drums & Olly on wailing guitar. It was followed by ‘Greasy’ a keyboard led song with funky guitar and solid drums.
‘A Nod Too Mittoo’ was a Jackie Mittoo influenced song with its Jamaican Studio 2 keyboard vibes and a very Caribbean influenced funk sound and great Hammond keys.
‘Eat Yer Greens’ was written in COVID lockdown, and with GarageBand help the other band members contributed virtually. It had great funky keys and guitar riffs to heavy off beat drums and bluesy guitar break from Olly. The first half was finished with ‘Whirlybird’ with more great Hammond keys to a funky beat with great guitar riffs from Olly.
The second half started with the addition of Shanade Morrow on vocals, and as a Leamington Spa local is well known to the Temperance audience. She also had two of Leamington Spa band The Swaps (James Knight & Beth Brooks) supporting her. As Beth commented afterwards, she had been listing to Shanade rehearsing late the previous evening.
Shanade added her great bluesy/soulful voice and they started with ‘Trip Unknown’ which was originally a jam track that Stevie sent around and all the band added to it to make the finished version.
‘Misfits’ was about a child that couldn’t sit still, and was a funky song with bluesy/soul vocals, great guitar riffs and solid drumming backing with expressive keyboards from Stevie. 'Kissing My Love’ started with a great drum intro from Grant and throbbing keys from Stevie and passionate vocals from Shanade.
‘Broken’ brought down the tempo with a sad ballad with passionate vocals from Shanade and lively keys from Stevie. ‘Salt’ was a song by Ava Max that regular Temperance supporter Liz Wright had introduced, with its slower tempo to start but was a slinky passionate song growing in tempo sung with guts by Shanade.
‘Holding On’ was an up-tempo song with great funk blues guitar sung with gusto by Shanade, with a great guitar solo from Olly.
As Stevie commented it was great that the first gig was at Temperance with its very supportive crowd and support on sound and lights by owner Adrian Gains.
The set finished with ‘All I Need’ a funky/bluesy song with funky guitar, great Hammond keys and Shanade telling the story and ‘Loving You is Easy’ before which Stevie said he was overwhelmed with the support from the audience. The track originally had a working title of funky summer shit! Was a great funky number to finish with soulful vocals from Shanade.
After very loud shouts of More More! From the audience the band played as an encore the Candy Staton song ‘I’d Rather be an old Man’s Sweetheart’ with full on vocals from Shanade, great backing from the whole band with excellent guitar break from Olly, heavy drums from Grant and Stevie’s signature keyboards.