Our workshops start with a brief history of the blues, where it came from and how it has influenced so much of today’s popular music. We’ll discuss the origins of the instruments and demonstrate how much of the early music was performed on everyday objects found around the house.

As a band we’ll play many different styles of the Blues, showing the diverse rhythms, grooves and song structures. We’ll also cover how to perform with other musicians, how playing with a rhythm section changes what you do and what makes a band swing.

Most importantly we want everybody to get involved and inspired. We hope you’ll come away with a better understanding of how to work with each other, how to listen and create music, and have a great time doing so.

Our workshops are not only for musicians at all levels but also for music fans.

We also provide workshops that specialise in certain areas:
Slide & finger picking guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, song writing & performance techniques.

Fernhill School

Neville Duke Road, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 9BY Tel: 01276 702540

Dear Ben, Constance and Maurice,

On behalf of Fernhill School Music Department, I am writing to thank you all for your fantastic Blues Workshop last Wednesday. The feedback from Year 8 and GCSE Music students has been really positive. Your input has certainly enriched our Blues teaching considerably. Hopefully, we will be able to repeat the experience in the next academic year. Good Luck with your future concerts.

With best wishes,

David Heard, Head of Music

Kingsgate Primary School - (Part of Big Arts Week)

Kingsgate Road, London NW6 4LB Tel: 0207 624 5379

Dear Constance, Maurice and Ben,

We would like to thank you very much for your visit to our school on Monday 17th June. We really appreciated the fact that you gave up a whole day to work with us. Children in Key stage One and Key stage two enjoyed the experience of seeing and interacting with real musicians.

Everyone enjoyed the music and the staff were very impressed by the amount of preparation and thought which had gone into your presentation. You provided opportunities for participation, carefully matched to the ages of the different groups of children and you paced the performance so that the children remained interested and listening throughout. As the enclosed comments and drawing will show, the children reacted in different ways, but all have gained from the experience.

We thank you again and wish you every success in the future.

Gill Stone and David Anderson - Deputies

The Licensed Victuallers' School

London Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 8DR Tel: 01344 882770

Dear Ben, Constance and Maurice,

Just a note to say thanks for a great concert on Thursday. It was very successful and, although I was not in school on Friday, lots of positive comments filtered back to me.

One thing that was exciting for them was that their exposure to live music is very limited and so they did not know what to expect. They are also, by nature, very conservative, and so the kid who listens to, say, heavy metal, cannot tolerate anything else. But that is in the synthetic world of TV, radio and cd. In the world of troubadours and the acrobatics of finger picking everything is something else; everything is real. That was revealing to them. And then the slow understanding that your music was associated with work and play, with real people and different times but that it gave us rise to rock 'n' roll and that that is where much of pop comes from would have meant something. And then, to pump up the rhythm and get the joint jumpin' was too much for any sentient being to resist.

If you would be interested in pursuing the school circuit further, I might be able to interest colleagues at some other schools. We would also love to have you back. Perhaps for a slightly different audience - like some of the day students - but I reckon we could fill the house, easy.

Anyway, thanks again. It was great, and we really enjoyed having you to visit.

All the best,

Richard Gibbs

Workshop nails the blues

Maltings Arts Theatre, St Albans - 30 November 2006

If you ever lay awake at night wondering what goats' toenails would be like to play then The Spikedrivers laid that one to rest.

The renowned blues band brought some southern warmth to the Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans on a dampish November night.

The trio sound more like an orchestra owing to the vast amount of percussion instruments they play - including the aforementioned goats toenails.

The first half of the gig consisted of a blues workshop which sound dull but was absolutely fascinating, fun and educational. This trio visit many schools with their workshop and I guess the kids would love them.

The group is made up of two Americans - guitar guru, singer and all-round cool dude Ben Tyzack from South Carolina and Constance Redgrave from California, who plays bass, goats toenails and a washboard among many other wild and woolly instruments.

Maurice McElroy on drums, vocals and percussion hails from Belfast in Northern Ireland and also talks the audience through much of the history of the blues - fleshing out all the things you thought you knew but only in a skeletal fashion.

I never knew why trains were so frequently mentioned in connection with the blues but they were a symbol of freedom to African slaves dropped into a country so huge they had no idea where they were and trains were their only viable means of escape.

It was also back to basics with Constance's master-class on clapping. She taught us how to do cool clapping using a backbeat instead of the usual saddo style beloved of the uninitiated.

The atmosphere these three conjure up between them is amazing - one minute you're in a smokey, swampy bar in downtown Alabama and the next in Paris, Texas, as Ben's bottleneck guitar-playing brings the haunting soundtrack of that Wim Wenders film to mind.

The second half featured many of their own songs as well as some classic blues covers from the likes of Robert Johnson and Willie Brown.

A big part of their act is their wonderful physicality and sheer enjoyment of what they do....

So often musos adopt a laid-back, cool pose meant to perhaps enhance their reputations as serious technicians. But I guess smooth operators like The Spikedrivers don't need a mask to hide behind. It's so infectious to see people enjoying what they do. They got the audience singing, clapping and even dancing at the end.

Blues aficionado Bob Ayre deserves a big vote of thanks for laying on these bi-monthly Shades of Blues nights.

In the meantime the next treat Bob has lined up for us on January 20 is the legendary Nine Below Zero so clear your diaries now.

Mary Brosnan