Northampton’s Greg Coulson (but Sunderland born) kicked off the evening with a bit of jazz & blues style piano for the early London diners at Maroto before starting with his own song ‘Stitch Me Up’ with great blues vocals and energetic piano playing.
The gig was the first to promote his new EP ‘Greg Coulson – Live at Crescent Records Studio’ which was funded by the Kenneth Fund at the Northamptonshire Community Foundation.
The EP has been dedicated to Damon Sawyer who mixed and mastered the EP before his sad passing later in 2024.
The evening contained several of Greg’s own songs both from the new EP and earlier work, which all demonstrated his virtuoso keyboard playing and great authentic blues vocals.
These included ‘Skull & Crossbones’ with its quicker beat and passionate vocals and strong piano with its different tone and emphasis shown with great effect. Next up was ‘Lighthouse’ with its evocative vocals and great bluesy keyboards.
Songs from the new EP included ‘Some One to be There’ with its expressive vocals with the passion of the piece with its lightening quick keyboard playing in his own blues style.
‘Introverted Blues’ which is about a journey to sobriety, with its great bluesy vocals and great keyboards with Greg’s usual passion. And finally, ‘Love in the Nick of Time’ with its offbeat piano playing which got stronger as the song continued with its atmospheric vocals.
The classic covers included T Bone Walker’s ‘Stormy Monday’ with its mellow and laid back piano playing which showed Greg’s virtuoso on the keyboards along with expressive vocals. Britney Spears ‘Your Toxic’ but with a jazz/blues keyboard interpretation and accompanying vocals.
One of Greg’s influences is Steely Dan so he gave us his take on ‘Peg’ with its expressive keyboard solo and strong vocals Back to You?
He finished with the Stealers Wheel song ‘Stuck in the middle with you’ with Greg’s blues interpretation vocals and keyboards, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ with Greg’s funky keyboard style with matching vocals, and ‘Hit the Road Jack’ with his unique rolling keyboard style with matching bluesy vocals.
