Billy Branch Takes Burton Agnes Jazz & Blues Festival By Storm

Billy Branch – hailed as the greatest living Blues harmonica player – had the audience on their feet within minutes of making his distinctive appearance with the Giles Robson band.

Spellbinding, his harmonica magic wowed the crowds - whose age groups spanned seven to 70 plus - at the seventh dynamic Burton Agnes Jazz & Blues Festival.

An American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues, Branch is a three-time Grammy nominee, an Emmy Award winner, and an Addy Award winner.

Willie Dixon, the renowned “Father of modern Chicago Blues” discovered Branch while he was still at college. An opportunity to tour with Willie’s band gave the harmonica player the much needed experience to forge a glittering career in the US and globally.

The combined talent of Billy Branch and Giles Robson, one of the UK’s leading harmonica players who fronts one of the best blues bands in the UK, went down a storm.

The headliner’s highlights including ‘Sonny Boy’ - a tribute to Sonny Boy Williamson, an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter who was hailed as an early and influential blues harp stylist.

Four packed days of ‘full on gigs’ resulted in the performers setting off from Burton Agnes at 4am to rouse the crowds at Edinburgh’s Jazz & Blues Festival.

Preceding Branch and Robson and looking impossibly glamorous is a stunning silver dress was Durham born Jazz singer, Jo Harrop, who enthralled the crowd with moving renditions of Peggy Lee classics as well as swinging out on fantastic songs including Cole Porter’s ‘’One of those things’.

Likable, warm and sincere, Harrop’s singing reflects how, throughout her childhood, she immersed herself with records and stories from Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Julie London & Peggy Lee – taking her inspiration from them all. 

The vocalist and her band featuring pianist, Alex Webb, and alto saxophonist, Tony Kofi, delivered a sultry version of Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Black Coffee’, Henry Mancini’s ‘Two for the Road’ and Peggy Lee’s iconic ‘Fever’ which stole the crowd’s hearts.

The festival’s diverse and colourful talent is among the reasons visitors return year-after-year. A group called Ubunye, which means ‘one-ness’ brings together singers who originate from Kwa Zulu Natal in South Africa. Now based Huddersfield with gospel and R’n’B players from Yorkshire, they combine an inspirational blend of jazz, Isigqi - traditional Zulu music - and Afro-pop.

In full party mode as the evening progressed, everyone decamped to the tent where Polly Bolton and Bella Gaffney were next up. Bradford-born Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Award winner, Bella Gaffney, compiles and performs folk inspired songs with her own original arrangements of traditional pieces.

York-based Polly Bolton first picked up the mandolin as a child and has been touring internationally in various line ups since her early teens. First jamming backstage after a show in York in the autumn of 2017, their collaboration and musical friendship – where they arrange material led by powerful vocals and glittering instrumental - blossomed from there.

Still young, the night ended aptly with rousing festival favourites, The Alligators, who entertained the fired up revellers until, partied out, they returned to the campsite with its stunning views of the Yorkshire Wolds after a magical and memorable day.