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Tawe Delta Blues Club, Swansea.

Lightnin' Willie & The Poor Boys (Tues 4th Semptember 2007)

A Texas whirlwind blew in to the Tawe Delta Blues Club last night, in the form of Lightnin' Willie and the Poorboys, playing a high-spirited show after the club's August break.
Willie's wild stage get-up, complete with US Cavalry hat and billowing, scarlet neckerchief, gives him the look of an extra from a John Wayne film, who completes his eccentric wardrobe with oddments of battlefield trophies from fallen combatants.
And it's not just the togs.
Willie has an arresting mix of musical styles too.
He is a bluesman who worships at a broad church, so the spirit of Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Bob Wills and
Duane Eddy put in an appearance at this starry tent-show-seance, lead by some wily work on his Fender Strat.
Hailing from Arlington, Texas and now based in California, Willie's guitar-playing has the kind of swing and bounce that seems to grow wild in those sunshine states and that thrives contentedly despite the long-running fashion for million-notes-a-minute playing.
His voice echoes like a mountain valley and the Poorboys lay down a raucous foundation, with some lovely harmonica playing from Giles King.
Willie's coaxing tones were heard to full effect when he wandered among the audience while singing and playing on a couple of numbers, but he can belt with the best of them, on songs like his own 'Don't Bite The Hand'.
Tuesday's show was a reunion of old friends, with Llanelli-based performer Terry Clarke stepping up to join the band on a couple of numbers.

Terry plugged in a glam 12-string electric Gretch and added some thundering twang and some mighty crooning and wailing on the Elvis number That's All Right Mama, with which the band marks the 30th anniversary of Presley's death.
Along with Willie, Terry also revisited the Cash classic, I still Miss Someone, which he rearranged and cut in Austin ten years ago on his own Texas lament, the album Lucky.
The show came to a close with an encore of Muddy's Can't Be Satisfied, which Willie attacked with vigour on a custom-made National Resophonic, which flashed like a 50's jukebox under the stage lights.

Kathryn Lay (courtesy of The South Wales Evening Post)

Slim's Blues Jam at Chicago Rock Cafe, Swansea.

... Terry Clarke, co-writer on Michael Messer's recent 'classic' "Lucky Charms", followed and dispelled any assumption this venue was only suitable to rockin' blues acts. His shadowy/rich voice carried around the Rock Café, whilst his under-stated guitar work perfectly suited the dense material on offer - 'Son House', the undoubted highlight of the whole night.

Darren Howells Blues Matters Feb 2006

Caught in the Act
TERRY CLARKE, MICHAEL MESSER
Half Moon, London
April 24, 1997

Charisma. You've either got ..... or you're in Ricochet. Terry Clarke most definitely has it. And I'm talking about Terry Clarke from Reading, not the curvy, white hat wearing Terri Clark from Nashville, although she definitely has it too.

With his tall, erect posture, black jeans, blue shirt, flicked back wavy hair, lean features, mean, turned down mouth, lightning quick smile and big, fat 12-string guitar, Clarke inhabited the stage of the Half Moon with the presence of a gunslinger or a young Johnny Cash.

He looked the business and he sounded better. Reinforced by the proud, metallic ring of his guitar, Clarke's voice and short, torn-oft phrasing had the bite of a crocodile. He delivered his self-composed lyrics with a dramatic snap and held his audience with an iron grip.

He was there to promote his new album,The Heart Sings, and did a high power sales job. Forget half-baked impersonations of American country music, Clarke is as genuine as, say, Van Morrison. With ballads like The Shelly River and Looking For You, he smelted Irish and Texan influences into a hard-edged white man's soul. And with upbeat numbers such as Blue Honey he proved to be an uncompromising rocker.

Terry Clarke isn't a new singer. But there must be many for whom he is just a name. If you've never seen him on stage, and I hadn't until this night, believe me, you're missing out on a potent and very credible entertainer who deserves a much bigger audience than he had this evening.

The show was opened by British slide guitarist Michael Messer who also had a new album, National Avenue, to sell. Messer and Clarke have worked and written together for years. They collaborated with Jesse Taylor on the highly acclaimed album Rhythm Oil in 1993 and co-wrote all but one of the songs on Messer's latest release. But, while Clarke's music is hard to pigeon hole, Messer's is straight down the line blues and r'n'b.

Backed by a loud three-piece band and gospel-based backing singer Sharon Vanbinsbergen,he pumped through repetitive, rift-heavy numbers like Step Right Up and Living In Rhythm. Most impressive, perhaps, was his solo acoustic version of Moonbeat and the mellow band number, Crow Blues, on which Clarke sat in.

The finale found Messer and band joining Clarke on stage for a noisy jam through some
vibrant, unidentified amalgam of blues and reggae before Clarke took lead vocals on an iron hard rendition of Cash's Big River.
Why wasn't the Half Moon filled to bursting? Artists like Terry Clarke prove that British country/roots, call it what you will, is alive and well. When are British audiences going to
wake up to that fact?

Douglas McPherson COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - JUNE 1997

TERRY CLARKE (Whelan's, Dublin)

Like an extra on a John T. Davis road movie, Clarke ambles onstage with the nonchalance of one who's heard the pep talk. sized up the opposition and decided to play his own game regardless of what the rest are doing. And with his arrival hera1ded by the stupefyingly brilliant Bewildered String Band. fiddles and sundry other strings aglow. Its no small wonder that he rests coolly on the belief that the music can speak for itself.

In Whelan's, Clarke found an audience evenly divided between old faithfuls and the unconverted. The 12-string guitar provided a lush and richly textured introduction to the material. Of Irish parents who took the Rosslare boat. Clarke made no secret of his complete submission to Irish ways and (the occasional) Irish law. 'Irish Rockabilly Blues' show-cased his considerable narrative skills, while 'Sligo Honeymoon 1946' excised a suitcaseful of stored memories of his own parents' early days of marriage.
Partnered by regular co-conspirator and journeyman Henry McCullough on electric and slide guitars, Clarke ran the gamut of blues, low amp rock. and rolling folk stories that entranced most of his audience with their erudition and insight.

'Blue In My Heart', a love song with an ache at its core slowed the pulse for a while but Clarke's tentative covers of Mississippi John Hurt's 'The Richland Woman Blues' and 'In Another Lifetime'. siphoned from the ashes of Cllfden festival. spread the net far beyond his own front gate.

Clarke's a child of the '50s with heroes plucked from the Gene Vincent/Eddie Cochran era, a refreshing reminder of the
shimmying heights scaled by the ones who carne and went before the fireworks of the '60s. His imagery, though, was unmistakably the Americana of Diner and American Graffiti with stockcars, James Dean and amphetamines puncturing his biopics to a backdnop of McCullough's somnolent electric guitar.

Not given to standing on ceremony. Clarke wended his way through his back catalogae and left little out The one reservation notable as the set progressed though was a growing tendency to eulogise Ireland and things Irish. Gladys Knight rightly wondered whether time has rewritten every line. Clarke, a romantic, has excavated the visceral impressions from his youth with few of the darker moments in place.

Still, he knows how to rattle the guitar so that it throws up a mean assortment of piquant chords that tweak at the bralncells
long after I've missed the last bus home. Camden St looks a lot less menacing after dark with a plethora of his notes waltzing around in my skull.

Siobhan Long
Hot Press, Dublin 1993

Terry Clarke at MyIes' Creek

Saturday evening and Palm Sunday's mass hells were ringing in my ears. The name Terry Clarke made my heart pound, I was eager to hear what this man had to say (or sing).
My aunt's brother of the same name and confined to a wheelchair had passed away just a few short weeks previously.
In Myles' Creek Terry Clarke's lyrics rolled over me as the Atlantic Ocean's waves washed the Pollock Holes in West Kilkee.
He sang soulful, self penned stories of times he had spent on these shores and of foreign experiences.
His lyrics are true,exact, poignant and exhilarating.
He remembers his parents life in Ireland, his holiday visits from nearby London and the inexorable connection between both cultures.
To be Irish and record it in songs like "Danny Boy", "Dublin's Fair City" or "Are ye Right there Michael are ye Right?" is one thing, but to come
from a dual culture Irish/English, struggle with that identity, and still come up with beautiful songs like "Sligo Honeymoon", "Hometown", "The Shelly River" and "Detroit to Dingle" is to me, the hallmark of poetic genius.
Terry Clarke was musically inspired from a young age. He can remember listening to Radio Luxemburg on dark Sunday nights with his parents. They loved music and would pump up the volume on those dreary winter evenings to dance to tunes from the Decca Record Label. Tunes from people like the Everly Bros, Eddie Cochran, Roy Orbison, Jim Reeves and Hank Locklin filled the room as young Terry was inoculated against the more mundane songs of the time.
Lately Terry Clarke has teamed up with Henry McCullough and can be heard performing his "Shelly River" album with a unique blend of electric and acoustic guitar.
"The Shelly River" is Terry Clarke's experience of dual cultures (Irish/English) plus the early day influence of American Rock 'n' Roll and Country.
To hear Terry and Henry live is an experience in itself.
Henry controls lead guitar sharply, let's the bottle neck slide, waft around Clarke's rhythm and supplies harmony vocals so simply they're as complex as a computer programme.
The evening they played Myles' Creek in Kilkee, Terry broke a string and cool pub owner "Ger Haugh" loved it as local skipper (this is the Atlantic Coast) Geoff Magee on blues harp accompanied Henry McCullough as he played the mandolin.
The crowd whooped, hollered and generally outdid the wailing West Wind that was beating against the window panes.
String replaced, "Irish Rockabilly Blues" had 'em stompin' whoopin' reelin' and a rockin'. This was a stormy night that the privileged would remember. - "Myles' Creek", Terry Clarke, Henry McCullough and Holy Week 1993.

Nodlaig Carr, Kilkee, Clare

Western Whisper, Ireland 1993

Terry Clarke at Whelan's

YOU'D need an atlas to follow the music of Terry Clarke; his songs take you everywhere from London's Harlesden and Kilburn to Cloonacool and Aughnacloy via Boston, Massachusetts and Austin, Texas.
These are journeys through Clarke's own heritage and each tune delves deeper into the man's roots in a never-ending search for his own spiritual home. Clarke sings in a rich country-flavoured tenor, with a pronounced accent, and knows enough about Irish culture to challenge the Hothouse Flowers in a table quiz.

It takes a while to get used to the sight of a grizzled cowboy singing gentle odes to Erin in a strong, Nashville-style drawl, but once you do, you wonder why anyone would bother singing about such irrelevant places as Amarillo and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This is Clarke's first tour of Ireland, taking in places like Clonakilty, Tramore and Dingle, some of which have already been incorporated into a new song, Deep Dream. It was Dublin's turn on Monday night, and a small but appreciative crowd turned up at Whelan's of Wexford Street to hear this talented Anglo-Irish performer in action.

Clarke was joined by legend-guitarist Henry McCullough, who added some very colourful flourishes to Terry's acoustic guitar strumming, but it was Clarke's own voice that kept the listeners entranced

Performing songs from his highly acclaimed second album The Shelley River, Clarke showed that there's more to his songwriting than simply name checking Irish towns. There are lyrical gems here also, succinct ideas and perceptive observations that make each song a short story in itself. Raining All Over the World uses a global theme to capture a very personal moment, while Sliigo Honeymoon 1946 borrows memories from another generation and makes them real and palpable. These are well crafted songs deserving of a second listen, and if Terry Clarke makes a return visit to these shores, let's hope he receives an even more enthusiastic welcome.

Kevin Courtney Irish Times 1992