For Crying out loud a ‘buzzing’ gig

Cry Baby & the Hoochie Coochie Boys BJ’s Rock in the Blues, The Minstrel
Cry Baby and the Hoochie Coochie BoysCry Baby and the Hoochie Coochie Boys
Cry Baby and the Hoochie Coochie Boys

Stoke on Trent’s Cry Baby and the Hoochie Coochie Boys returned to BJ’s Rock in the Blues Club to give a brilliant show to a packed house.

The Boys are Rob Wilkinson on vocals and harmonica, Vince Cutcliffe on guitar, Mark Hargreaves keyboards, Chris Bevington bass, and Andy Carr on drums.

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They kicked off with some great blues, I Don’t Believe and I Got News , bringing in Rob’s amazing blues harp, before moving on to an up tempo Nine Below Zero track, Don’t Point Your Finger At Me, again with superb harp.

This was followed by great guitar work on More Than I Can Take, then one of their few ballads, A Long History Of Love, both King King numbers.

The set continued with country blues on Living It Down, then a great take on the Muddy Waters classic I Want To Be Loved before a self-penned superb slow blues called Come Fly With Me, with great vocal input.

Rounding off the first set, some more King King, One More Time, giving us a nice bit of wah wah on the guitar, and to finish a great harp-led Chicago blues number.

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The second set kicked off with a rockin’ number, Personal Jesus, then a great take of the Alabama 3 track, Too Sick To Pray.

Upping the tempo brought a rockin’ rhythm & blues Squeeze Me In and a Nine Below Zero number Soft Touch.

All Your Life was followed by a brilliant compilation of Anyway You Want Me and Bright Lights.

There was some great slide guitar from Vince on Elmore James’ classic blues Wild About You Baby, with excellent blues harp from Rob.

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Raising the tempo again, we had a Dr Feelgood classic, Back In The Night, before Turn It On-Turn It Up and Take My Love led on to the last number, a Cry Baby 
classic Zydeco Boogie – a brilliant track with Vince on mandolin giving us a walkabout in the audience, and excellent work on keys, giving that authentic Cajun flavour, superb.

A well-deserved encore of Gimme Some Lovin’ and Can I Get A Witness completed a buzzing night.

The musicianship of the band is amazing and all are involved in other projects.

This well-recommended band also have a new CD in the making, hopefully available later this year.

Rosy Greer