Paul Lamb & The King Snakes Plays Backstage On Friday 16th December at The Green Hotel Kinross 2016 For Mundell Music.

Tickets £16. Buy Tickets HERE.

Green Hotel Kinross Reduced Accommodation Rates
Paul Lamb is renowned for his harmonica playing. The band have won British Blues Band of the Year several times and UK Album of the Year. The lineup includes Chad Strentz on vocals and rhythm guitar, Rod Demick on vocals and bass guitar, Ryan ‘Junior’ Lamb on lead guitar and Dino Coccia on drums.

Despite many successful years playing the blues, Paul believes that there is still more that
could be done to promote his music. “Blues, for me, gets a bad press. Especially when they
put out the line Black Americans are the Real Deal which is not always the case. White guys
can play the Blues. It is also billed as sad, troubled music, but it can also be uplifting and
happy.”
One aspect that he does welcome is the opportunity to play at festivals, to an audience that
would not normally listen to Paul Lamb And The King Snakes. “I have done many festivals
that are pop, hard rock or mainstream, and they are all alike to me. My type of music crosses
over really well. Its good to have variety in any event. I have played with Meatloaf and Mark
Knopfler, then last year I played on Danish metal band Volbeat’s latest album. This started off
as one track, but when we went into the studio, they loved my style of playing so much that it
became three tracks.” He cherishes these friendships, and was delighted to be flown over to
Boston by Jerry Portnoy for the American blues harmonica maestro’s 60
th birthday. It was a star studded affair where he met the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the J Geils Band.
However, he knows that he cannot afford to be complacent. “The audience appear to be
growing old with me! I would love to see more young kids at the blues festivals and folk
clubs. The Blues scene is not the same as it was. The record industry was good in the 80s and
90s, but the style has now changed to a heavy rock blues. Players like Otis Grand and Mike
Sanchez are still trying to stick to roots and blues, and we are all staying away from rock to
create our own style. That’s what I did. Once you mastered one of those greats you can play
them all. It’s the same instrument, just a different style. I listened to east coast guitar players
like Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Boy Fuller, and that’s what I played on the harmonica. It
wasn’t based on the harmonica playing, it was more a mountain hillbilly sound rather than
the Delta blues.”
Paul has taken his playing further afield, including Hong Kong and Indonesia where he loved
the food and the people, but he still retains a strong affinity with his heritage, So much so that
if he ever wrote a book it would probably be called Seabirds Of The North East; he is a keen twitcher!
He recently suffered a health scare that knocked his confidence, but he is now back on the
road again, and surrounded by friends and family. His son Ryan plays guitar with him, and he
often departs from the full King Snakes lineup to perform as a duo with their guitarist and old
friend Chad Strentz. This makes it more affordable for venues to book the man Paul Lamb.
Behind the scenes he still does a lot of self promotion as that is how he originally built up his
reputation. He realises the need to keep up with technology, and he has enrolled a couple of

people to maintain his website. Paul Riordan, his friend from the days of

Harmonica Man has now been transformed into Paula, and she also helps out with the website as well as producing his music. After all this time he has no regrets, believing that “life is too short to
have them”, and considers himself an entertainer rather than just a musician. “Well Brucie
said that the name of the game is entertainment, and I believe that communicating with the
audience is what makes a great show.
”Paul Lamb has built a great legacy, originally based on
the influence of Sonny Terry, and it is a quote from Sonny that he holds dear to his heart.
“Son, play what you feel, and feel what you play, and that’s it.”
Paul Lamb Plays Backstage Kinross 2016

Paul Lamb

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