Feb Lockdown Livestream

Saturday 20th February 2021, from 8pm

Kyla Brox Duo plus Simon Robinson  

Saturday’s Lockdown Livestream was another wonderful evening of music. Thanks to all those who tuned in, donated, commented and shared on social media! You can watch the gig again below, and we’ll continue to accept donations over the next week. Massive thanks once again to Arts Council England for the funding support. 

 

When planning this six months ago, we had originally hoped to film at and live stream from our beautiful local community venue, The Carlile Institute in Meltham, but the current UK lockdown restrictions make this impossible. We had anticipated this possibility of course, and when programming the gig we were careful to select a couple of brilliant duos, each of whom lives in the same household.

Award-winning Mancunian singer-songwriter Kyla Brox has been described as “the finest female blues singer of her generation”. Winner of the 2018 UK Blues Challenge and the 2019 European Blues Challenge, Kyla’s star continues to shine brightly. Kyla was also crowned Best Female Vocalist in the European Blues Awards 2019 and is the daughter of cult blues artist Victor Brox and multi-talented singer Annette Reis. She has been a professional musician since the age of twelve, first in her father’s band and then as a solo artist. With many albums and numerous international tours under her belt, Kyla’s sensational vocal performances have drawn widespread acclaim, and she is regarded as one of the very best soul-blues singers the British Isles have ever produced.

As well as her full band line-up, Kyla regularly performs in a duo with her husband, virtuoso acoustic guitarist Danny Blomeley. When he was very young, Danny heard BB King on cassette and immediately fell in love with the blues. Shortly afterwards, at the age of 12, Danny found himself wielding a bass guitar on stage with legendary Bluesman Victor Brox. That’s where he met Kyla, and together they spent the next nine years honing their craft in the Victor Brox Blues Train, until The Kyla Brox Band was formed. Over 25 years after the spell was first cast, Dan is still happily making magical music with Kyla, and we’re delighted to be presenting this outstanding duo in concert!

Opening the show will be talented Leeds-based banjoist, guitarist and singer Simon Robinson. He’ll be performing a set of old-time Appalachian tunes and folk/Americana songs in a duo with gifted fiddle player and multi-instrumentalist Mick Russell. Simon recently released his second album When The Sun Goes In. In normal times he regularly performs live both solo and with the Redwood River Band. Organiser of the Leeds Old-Time Music session, since the outset of the pandemic Simon has been running regular Lockdown Singaround sessions on Zoom and he also works with various organisations to bring live acoustic music to care homes and schools. Simon and Mick’s set will feature footstomping traditional tunes – on banjo, fiddle, guitar and dulcimer! – and evocative songs.  

Stay tuned for news of our March concert!

Please check back soon (or follow us on social media) for news about the March concert line-up. We had originally planned to live stream from the Carlile Institute but given the current situation, we’ve decided to also move our March event will also be fully online.  As ever, you can be sure that we’ll take the opportunity to feature some of the most talented and entertaining Americana, folk/roots and bluegrass artists around.

Funding support from Arts Council England

We want to acknowledge the generous support of Arts Council England who awarded us some funding from the Project Grants: Supporting Grassroots Live Music fund back in October. This helped to underwrite our Fall into Autumn virtual festival and these Feb and March 2021 concerts. This support has been crucial to help True North Music survive this time of no Printreal-life tours and concerts, and adapt to producing online events. It has enabled us to pay all the participating musicians a reasonable guaranteed fee. We still need your help though, and will be requesting donations to help us balance our budget, cover all costs and pay the artists as much as possible –  so please make a donation if you can! 

Donate at paypal.me/truenorthmusicuk