Music in Norwich
Without doubt, one of the best musical nights out in East Anglia happens every last Wednesday of each month at the Walnut Tree Shades, Norwich.
It’s a rum affair. As the evening darkens and the respectable folk leave Gentleman’s walk for their front parlours, that are decked out with a wall-mounted flat-screen for televisual home entertainment, you will see an irregular line of slightly stooped figures moving silently into the shadowy alley, known as Old Post Office Court.
Like scenes from Prohibition era Chicago, each of these characters is carrying a battered old music case. At the top end of this crack in Norwich’s heavily made-up retail facade, it’s the same. The number of these unlikely characters filing into the narrow lane is hard to register. Where are they heading? What do they actually carry in those ungainly cases plastered with stickers?
It turns out that the shared condition of slight stooping of the shoulders results from hundreds of hours spent hunched over guitars, basses, keyboards, drums, saxophones, or from blowing harps, a saxophone, or the occasional trumpet.
Once inside The Walnut Tree Shades, this loose, aggregation of humanity transforms into a bright, rumbustious, collective of blues musicians, held loosely together under the banner of the Norfolk Blues Society.
Before moving to Norfolk I had not come across a regular gathering that could absolutely guarantee a damned good night out every time. The closest I’ve ever seen to this bunch of talent was probably in the Erdington Folk Club, in late-1970s Birmingham, West Midlands.
Norfolk is lucky to have this blues society; Norwich is blessed to hold it.
Of course, the Walnut Tree Shades is the perfect venue for Norfolk Blues Society. Atmospherically lit, mirrored, with a long, beautiful wooden bar top, the pub is served by a young team, who are friendly and professional to a T.
The performance area to the right of the bar is broad enough and just raised high enough to merit being called a stage. The pub is just big enough to generate and small enough to sustain a super atmosphere, when a band plugs in.
With the musical bar set very high at home, I flew off to JFK International airport thinking that if I found any bar in the US that came close to ‘Shades, my time and money would have been well spent.
Music in Memphis
In Memphis, I think I have found a very close relative; Earnestine & Hazel’s . It’s got great staff, live music until two in the morning at weekends and the Soul Burger.
Earnestine & Hazel’s
You can have a single or a double Soul Burger, with cheese, or no cheese. Apart from a range of hot, bottled sauces to gamble on, that is the menu.
You want something else? Then see if the Arcade restaurant across the street is open, (it won’t be, it does breakfasts. Elvis loved them apparently).
Like The Walnut Tree, Earnestine & Hazel’s is a locals’ bar. A place untainted by the tat and hustle that increasingly defines Beale Street. Memphis folk are protective of their dive bar at 531 South Main Street. It’s where they go for a good time, away from the music grockles.
A week or so later, queuing for tickets to get into the Tennessee State University homecoming US football match in Nashville, the guy in front of me was indignant that I had been there.
“How come you know about Ernestine & Hazel’s?” he exclaimed, me being a white ‘Englishman’ and everything.
Tourism has made Beale Street, Memphis a pastiche of itself, (see also Bourbon Street, New Orleans and (OMG!!!) the Playas de las Americanas atmosphere of Nashville’s honky tonk Broadway). So, a place like Ernestine’s & Hazel’s is special.
It is vibrant and welcoming to passing rollin’ stones, but it won’t adapt to their expectations, it’s the visitors who have to do the adapting. You might get a seat or bar stool, but expect to stand and move around as locals come in, boogie, move on.
I found about the ” best dive bar in the world”, when walking by and being interrupted by a guy at the door, (he might have been security, he could have been a regular having a smoke on the sidewalk, or possibly the cook). He said,
“You look like you need a Soul Burger!”
“I do!” I said and stepped in.
I was advised by JB behind the counter that Friday was the night to be here, not a slow Thursday, so I returned with my heavy duty duffle bag the next evening.
My plan was to pull an all-nighter. This meant staying in the bar until closing time, a little after two a.m., then crossing the road to sit out the rest of darkness in the Union Station Hotel opposite, while waiting for the New Orleans train at six forty. I planned to sleep it all off on the journey south.
The band that night would be perfect for The Norfolk Blues Society. Two exceptionally gifted youngsters, one on electric piano, the other on lead guitar, with backing from a gnarled and solid rhythm section.
This quartet treated us to a steaming night of rock and roll in the ivory-thumping style of Jerry Lee Lewis. This was not straight covers, this was authentic rock and roll.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen! My name’s Wyly (“Why-lee”) Bigger and this is my wonderful band. We’re goin’ to be here until they throw us out!“
And with that they set off like a freight train. Like one of those Union Pacific freight trains that’s still ‘Building America’. One needing two locomotives up front, with two more halfway along to help pull the load. One with two layers of containers, on an uncountable series of flat trucks clacking over the the road crossing.
I timed one at a crossing in St Louis. Eight minutes from start to finish and that was while it was accelerating, The interval between each clack of the track perceptibly shortening as the engines built up power. Once rolling these trains take a lot of stopping; just like Wyly and his crew.
The band played for five hours! They only took two short breaks. They had no opening act to fill any of the time. It was exhausting, but ultimately thrilling to be party to such a gig.
I was the last customer out of the bar that night. I was in no hurry with my train not due until daybreak, but I did need to rest my smoking dancing shoes.
Wyly is a son of the Memphis area, who speaks in the relaxed and amiable twang of Tennessee. He’s been performing live since he was twelve at church meetings. He’s now a full-time professional musician.
This means solo gigs, weddings, lugging his keyboard around to provide accompaniment to other acts and it means nights like this, as the main man. But he’s a modest entertainer, who gives generous recognition to the contributions of his band members.
Wyly Bigger
Wyly seems to live out of his car and is sincerely grateful for the opportunities his talents give him to travel and play around the southern states. He carries a contagious joy in his performance. It’s a wonderful thing to be in a crowd fuelled by such energy.
You can find out more about Wyly on Spotify, Instagram, Facebook and at www.wylybigger.com
He’s also just announced the release of his first EP recording. It’s available on all formats to buy or download and it is not all covers.
Wyly recently played in Clarksdale at a blues festival. He’ll have been delighted to have played there, a place aged so long in the barrels of blues music.
Tonight on lead guitar is another local lad, John Hay, who is also early to mid-twenties, Whenever his turn, John produced solos that were exciting and subtle. Nothing showy, each phrase and shift of tone, choice of effects pedal filling the room with the sharpness and variety of a lightning storm.
While the other three band members seemed to be enjoying the night, John glowered. His apparent mood a small cloud in the joy of the night. But it turns out I misread him.
“Resting Guitar Face.” explained the good-natured bassist, Carl Caspersson. “He’s concentrating like hell. Yep, resting guitar face. Leads are all the same!” he laughed, before returning to the beat again with the cool as a cucumber drummer, Earl Lowe.
Of all the bars and venues I visited in nine cities across six states, Ernestine’s & Hazel’s was the only one that was a local to the standard and feel of our very own Walnut Tree Shades. Sometimes we Brits don’t realise how lucky we are, sometimes.
