Root Sap aka JC and Angelina Grimshaw, Shamus O'Donnells Irish bar
Basingtoke, Wednesday, 11th February, 1998
The Dance Preachers
Words Mike Plumbley · Pictures Skyport Ade TuckerBasingstoke doesn't feature anywhere near the top of my favourite places to visit. Much of the the town's old provincial charm was lost when they tiled and pedestrianised the city centre then cloaked it with a glass roof. By early evening this becomes another faceless urban wasteland.
Tonight salvation is at hand. Just a stones from new town, next door to the post office, in one of the last remaining 'old' streets there's an Irish bar, Shamus O'Donnells with live music. Tonight Root Sap aka JC and Angelina Grimshaw from the Isle of Wight are playing. By half eight when I arrive the bar is neatly divided into two camps. The 'football' crowd are noisely gathered around a big screen at the far end. The music fans are grouped about the stage set against the wall in the centre of the bar.
By nine o'clock when the bar manager turns off the TV sound the football fans are hushed and hunching their shoulders. Just after I left school my passion for football subsided as my love for live music increased. So although JC and Angelina begin accompanied by the shouts from the terraces it is soon all over. The first half a dozen numbers are choreographed by a passing procession of head slung low football supporters. They are headed for the door with their teams stuffing visibly knocked out of them. As a friend commented to me today "It's about time we invented something else we can beat the world at . . ."
So a combination of South American footballers and JC and Angelina had the bar filled with just music by half nine. Angelina had begun by singing Blind Willie McTell's Lonesome Day. Along with Muddy Water's Louisiana Blues this remains one of my all time favourite songs. When Angelina moans in the microphone the classic line: "That Mississippi river so deep and so wide . . ." I just want to fall over.
If you close your eyes when Angelina sings the ghost of Bessie Smith is right there in the room. She manages to capture all the medicine tent hoodoo and a fair bit of the swagger of Bessie's slaked by whiskey vocal. JC's mandolin, national guitar or lap slide just rips all over the place. An infectious, half step, kick your boots along, jitterbugging joy. His harmonica playing tonight is as raucaus and solid as the wood floor.
JC and Angelina aka Root Sap bill themselves as blues, hula, jazz and cajun. Their sets like tonight's are not just faithful rehashes from old blues records. When they cover material by Blind Willie McTell, Memphis Minnie or Mississippi John Hurt they sound as fired as Robert Johnson did after learning his stuff from Son House and Willie Brown.
How two musicians who grew up on the Isle of Wight in the techno eighties and ended up sounding like a juke joint duo might be learned from studying the originals they performed tonight. Many were from Angelina's solo CD Long Lonely Road. The gorgeous lope of The Wheels Are Rolling Now (about a tour of Ireland), the infectious Old Jack Lightning and Wild Willy originated from the pen of their father, the inspirational John Rufus Grimshaw. JRs disregard of electronic "tomfoolery" shines like a beacon everytime this duo find a stage.
JC reckoned his dad was sat with a glass of red wine at home (and I should think listening to a Gus Cannon record) when he introduced 'Wild Willy'. They had the crowd right in their palm by this point. People danced. Two blokes had even got up to tango together. JC's lap slide guitar was truly blinding and fit for jitterbugging on the dancefloor to.
An unexpected treat of the set had been my first hearing of an orginal called The Ballad of Rod Garfield. Rod, currently doing for the harmonica what Crocodile Dundee did for the bowie knife down under in Australia. It appears that Rod was once a stalwart of the Basingstoke blues scene although he is better known on the Isle of Wight as the harmonica for hire bluesman who blags himself onstage at the drop of a John Lee Hooker riff.
The Ballad of Rod Garfield was steeped in red Texas dirt like something to drink tequilla to and dance the night away. The lyric that caught my ear was "It maybe country but it comes from the blues . . ." Angelina just swaying and strumming an acoustic as she had done all evening, twinning vocals with JC's dark charm.
They kept trying to end but the crowd led by Rex who had promoted the gig continued to shout for more. So the encores ran from Memphis Minnie's Chauffer Blues onto Old Jack Lightening who "Can't sing a note but his dancing's frightening . . ." Finally John Henry with a steamhammer beat nailed the set to a close.
Root Sap often expand into a unit known as the Dance Preachers. Duo or full band they deliver some sermon.
Mike Plumbley
Set list included: Covers by Blind Willie McTell (Statesboro Blues, Lonesome Day), John Mississippi Hurt tune, two Memphis Minnie songs (one was Chauffer Blues), Cry Me A River, John Henry. Originals were: Sinking Stone, Wheels Are Rolling, Wild Willy, Ballad of Rod Garfield and Old Jack Lightning.Root Sap played two sets between 9 and 11 with a break for a beer. JC Grimshaw played mandolin, National Steel guitar and bottleneck lap slide guitar and sang in his very own dark style. Angelina Grimshaw sang like she was travelling the southlands in a medicine tent show and played acoustic guitar.