Temperance café in Leamington Spa hosted a hot Sunday afternoon with the brilliant Stevie Watts Trio with their blend of 1960’s soul, funk and blues with a hint of jazz! The line-up was Stevie Watts (keyboard), Nat Martin (guitar) and Luke Harris (drums). They were joined by local Leamington Spa guest vocalists Shanade Morrow and Beth Brooks.
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Stevie Watts is a great Hammond organ player and won the Top Instrumentalist category in the UK Blues Federation Awards 2024. He has performed with some of the top musicians (Steve Winwood, Elles Bailey, Willie and the Bandits and many more). Nat Martin has played guitar with Toyah, Thomas Dolby and Jo Harman. Luke Harris is the drummer, based in Southam, with Brand New Heavies and has also played with Tricky and Roachford.
After Stevie’s witty introduction the band kicked off with a couple of instrumental numbers ‘Turtle Walk’ and the brand new ‘Geoffrey’s Doughnut’, a place holder title for now, showing their great funky & soulful playing style with blues & jazz genres mixed in.
They next played songs with vocals by Stevie & Nat including the Lou Donaldson song ‘Who’s Making Love’ and the very funky Lee Dorsey song ‘Get Out of my Life Woman’
As Stevie explained before the next number the trio is an occasional project as all three members are busy with their main bands, but enjoy the change of style and working together.
Moving to some New Orleans styled songs they played The Meters song ‘Yeah, Your Right’, with its great funky beat, off beat drums and some great Blues guitar from Nat.
To finish the first half the band played an original number written by Stevie in the COVID lockdown ‘Struttin’ which is a very soulful & funky tune with wizard keys break, soulful bluesy guitar and solid drums with a great stop finish.
The second half included the instrumental number ‘Ain’t It Funky’ with its great keys intro and funky guitar.
Then the band was joined by the soulful singer Shanade Morrow for passionate vocals on a Liz Wright song ‘Salt’. Then Beth Brooks (The Swaps) joined for ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ with her brilliant bluesy voice and passion.
Then the band played a quicker tune with the Taj Mahal/Jimmy Smith ‘Strut’ with its great blues guitar from Nat before a slower number with its mellow feel with ‘Memphis Sky’ with its expressive keys and softer drums.
Then Shanade & Beth joined on a Sugar Pie Desanto song ‘In the Basement’ with brilliant soulful lead vocals from Shanade backed by Beth.
After a sad song written in Stevie’s bedroom in Shoreham ‘For Rosalind’ with its latin blues style the band after great applause finished as an encore with Booker T & The MGs classic song ‘Green Onions’
