Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
One thing Andy Fairweather Low is not, is invisible, even if the man himself has declared it so with a hopeful tongue in cheek side glance at the audience, for sheer presence does not come from being at the front of the stage always in the limelight of the employer of the day, but what you have brought to music across the decades; and in that respect alone, the man who led Amen Corner to four successive top ten places in the U.K. charts with Bend Me, Shape Me, High In The Sky, the phenomenal (If Paradise) Is Half As Nice, and Hello Susie, is not invisible, but an illumination.
The Invisible Bluesman is a nod to time spent with the greats of music, from Blues to the originators of Progressive Rock, the description perhaps of a man, a musician playing just behind the main draw for the evening, but loving the sound so much that the fact he doesn’t get easily recognised by the crowd is of little consequence, it is just enough to know what he brings to the set; and in that case the new album from Andy Fairweather Low is a genius of homage and retrospective.
Undeniably cool, whether on the large arena stage, or humbly performing for example in the close quarters of Bilston’s Robin 2 venue, Andy Fairweather Lowe’s list of fellow performers who appreciate, laud his ability and time is arguably amongst the best endorsement in music today, and in his first ever solo blues album the tribute is rightly to himself, but one that remains honest, sharp of detail, unpretentious, and perhaps befitting the man modestly assertive when it comes to the sound.
Across tracks and covers such as Rollin’ and Tumblin’, the brilliant Gin House Blues, to who which Amen Corner took Bessie Smith’s original and gave it a slice of Welsh melancholy and gave the band their first top twenty hit, Baby What You Want Me To Do, Mystery Train, So Glad You’re Mine, and Life Is Good, taking inspiration from the likes of modern great Erja Lyytinen, the majesty of Arthur Crudup, Sam Philips, and Carl Perkins.
With additional band performances from names such as Ian Jennings, Paul Beavis, Henry Spinetti, and Dave Bronze, what the listener finds is a truth of the music eternal, no one is concealed by time, instead every voice, every action leaves its mark, and in The Invisible Bluesman, Andy Fairweather Lowe is out front, proud, and every note passionate and observable.
Ian D. Hall