Spotlight Sessions Spotlight Session: The Gareth Hughes Blues Band

Many of the band attended and met at the monthly Enler Delta Blues Club Comber Jam and The McKenna's Blues Jam in Monaghan. On the drive back in the motorhome from Monaghan, Niall and I (Norman) discussed hosting a jam in Belfast. To do so we needed a band and he contacted Gareth Hughes who agreed to front the band. He approached the John Hewitt who said they would like to be collaborators and provide the venue with free admission and no room charge. Now we hold a blues jam on the last Wednesday of the month plus we were given a Wednesday residency to play our jump jive Chicago blues.

Blues! We play predominantly 1950s/60s authentic Chicago blues but every week the set will change as although the tunes are covers they all get the Gareth Hughes Blues Band improvised treatment including altered tempo to fit the mood in the room. The Gareth Hughes Blues Band have a clear passion for the music delivering electrifying energy hence the term Jump Jive. Our aim is to fuel a blues revival in Belfast. One that honours the roots of the genre while bringing people together through the power of live music.

Our blues is predominantly MOBO, music of black origin namely tunes by Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Otis Rush, Albert King, Jimmy Rogers, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Charlie Musselwhite, William Clarke and Matt Schofield being a good mixture of strong harmonica and guitar solos.

The band has only been going just over a year now so this isn't really in concrete, but getting called to play in the International Rory Gallagher Festival was great and also the Monaghan Harvest Time Blues Festival as it was there the idea for the band was born. Possibly because we will host the blues jam at McKenna's Bar, Monaghan on Friday 30th October possibly playing there is special. That said, our first gig outside the John Hewitt was a sold out Guinness Blues Café gig at the Deer's Head, which was a great experience as we played to an audience of 120 and we didn't know who over half of them were!

Thankfully the band, by hosting a monthly Blues Jam, has played alongside some of Belfast’s top blues artists, including Lee Hedley, Mike Wilgar, Chris Taplin, and The Reverend Doc, while also welcoming less experienced musicians eager to step up and play.
This is our time to give the music community something back that we reaped and harvested when attending blues jams in the past.

Now that's a secret we are not willing to share, except to say that something that wasn't suppose to happen in a song, near paralysing the band on stage, has now been incorporated to actually make that song stand out!

Going forward we are planning next year's summer blues festivals as we started the year with just the one slot but ended the year having been invited to play at seven in total. Being a powerhouse five-piece want to bring our raw, emotional classic Chicago blues to the whole of Ireland in 2027.