Phil Edgeley

Phil Edgeley plays the blues. Solo. A lot of us think we play the blues, a gig here, a festival there, but Edgeley plays the blues nigh on every night he can find a venue open, from The Shrubbery at Mission Beach to The Republic Bar in old Hobart Town, every week, every year. Since he embarked on The Neverending Tour, he has swung up and down the east coast of Australia enough times for us to lose track.
That gig trail includes rubbing shoulders with the likes of Jeff Lang, The Backsliders, Ian Moss, Tex Perkins and Ash Grunwald, and at Thredbo, Moruya, Howden (UK), Illawarra, Manly, St. Albans, Berry and Newcastle Festivals, releasing two CDs, This Life and Then and Now along the way.

From Co. Lincolnshire, Edgeley has blazed a foot-stompin', blues-drenched path without ever looking back, armed with his trademark Churchill acoustic and National resonator guitars not forgetting a little Tim Kill Weissenborn wizardry, wrenching the living blues out of the very soul of any venue he cares to play.

That strain of folk that first showed up with his love of Kelly Joe Phelps is coming through these days like a brindle stripe on a blue heeler, and he's as likely to soothe your soul with Richard Thomson's "Beeswing" as tear out your transmission with "Broke Down Engine". A sophisticated step outside, Edgeley resists the Chicago storm, fusing his melodic British folk roots voice with a different kind of Delta tough, the lyrics compressed through the cold concrete of urban English street life.

Sure, he's still a bluesman through and through, but the roots will out, and Edgeley’s British folk heritage and a swag of festivals, big name supports and the need to find another dollar, another gig, makes for a more all-round man, a more versatile performer - a bluesman for all seasons.

(Author - Tom Flood)

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