Old folk’s music? Well, yes, but the blues can appeal to all generations, as DAVID WHETSTONE finds out

A DOUBLE dose of the blues is on offer tonight when John Mayall takes to the stage of The Sage Gateshead’s Hall One with special guest Oli Brown.

These two accomplished guitar men are at different ends of their careers, the former, at 77, being the “undisputed godfather of the British blues” and the latter, at 22, “arguably Britain’s hottest young Blues player”.

The words in quotation marks are those of the publicists but they can hardly be disputed.

Mayall is renowned as the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers whose members have included Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya and many more.

He does not, as you can see, deign to perform with any old riff-raff.

Oli, though, has a relatively old head on his young shoulders and a CV to match.

He played at Glastonbury this year, has recently completed a tour of the United States and Canada with his band and scored a double at the British Blues Awards, landing the Best Live Band 2011 and Best Album prizes.

The latter was for last year’s Heads I Win Tails You Lose, produced with Mike Vernon who has also worked with many of the aforementioned greats. It followed Oli’s debut album, Open Road, which came out in 2008 and stayed in the blues charts for 10 years.

On the phone from the States, where he has lived since 1969 without shedding his English accent (product of a North West upbringing), John comes clean, saying: “The thing is, I don’t book the tours and I didn’t put the programme together. It was Flying Music (the promoters) who chose him to be on tour with us.

“But I know Oli has been doing really well, particularly in England, so it’ll be exciting to see what he’s all about.

“The last time I heard him was about five years ago and he was good – but he’ll be better now.