CONCERT FOR ETHIOPIA

1. Introduction, 2. Back At The Chicken Shack, 3. First Time I Met The Blues, 4. Neighbour, Neighbour, 5. Mellow Down Easy, 6. Blues Tune/I Wonder Who, 7. My Baby She Left Me, 8. Walking Blues, 9. Waiting For The Call, 10. Born Under A Bad Sign, 11. Messing With The Kid, 12. Nadine.

In early December 1984 a Benefit for Ethiopia concert was held in Scotland at Edinburgh's Usher Hall in Lothian road featuring Rory Gallagher, Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart Willie Garnett and Don Weller on sax and John Picard on trombone. The recording finally surfaced few months ago and here is now coming out in this interesting disc. The Stones had played there in September 64 and June 65, so after 20 years both Watts and Stewart (a Scottish man by the way) came back to play this gig. The band is in practice a spin off version of Rocket 88 and after an instrumental Jack Bruce sings "First Time I Met The Blues" the Buddy Guy classic that has a great guitar solo by Rory Gallagher. The recording suffers by some reverberations probably due to the Usher Hall acoustic resonance but it is still clear to allow listening to all the instruments despite some annoying echo. After a long set led by Jack Bruce that is closer to free jazz than rock it is Rory Gallagher's turn to play the blues with great solos during Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign", Junior Wells "Messing With The Kid" and rock and roll with Chuck Berry's "Nadine" which is the night's encore.