SHORT FUSE BLUES with EMMA SMYTH

Interview with Ian McDonald .

Ian..So how did you two meet?

Steve..We met at the blues kitchen in Camden,<london>, at the end of June 2024..

Emma..I was sitting in  with the house band as i often do on Sunday nights

Steve..i’m a fairly regular visitor to the Blues Kitchen Sunday night jam , it’s one of the best in London,(i want a free pint for that plug by the way), seriously good house band and great monitors ..i hadn’t seen Emma before as i usually leave before eleven to get the tube..however that particular night i had rather more to drink than usual as we were celebrating a friends birthday.. and when Emma came on it was an epiphany.. I knew immediately she was the singer I’d been looking for for the last five years.

Emma .. Steve came up to me at the end and asked me if I wanted to come and play some gigs in Spain and do some recording..a lot of people do come up and say things like that , but somehow I knew it was for real. I gave him my number and a few weeks later  I went to the house he shares with his wife Aurora in Andalucia. We played some gigs  in Andalucia and shortly after that we were in the PM recording Studios in Murcia. We recorded 18 songs in 3 days.

Ian..Emma, how did you come to be singing blues?

Emma .. When I was a child my dad had a Rock and Roll compilation album and I played the hell out of it. Later I worked at the Blues kitchen and was singing a mixture of Soul and Blues, Etta James, Ann peebles, Tina.. the usual suspects. There is a whole scene of young people who play and sing blues in London.. our guitar player, Will, is only 19.. and there’s a whole scene around the Ain’t nothing but. in Kingly street , just behind Hamleys.

Steve.. Not just young people..

Ian.. I was coming to that..you’re not even the oldest in the band..

Steve.. Unbelievably our drummer, Dave,  is even older than me ..Oscar Wilde said after 25 age was no longer important, and who am i to correct ireland’s greatest playwright..

ian.. So Emma, what are your favourites from the album?

Emma.. My favourite is After Love..but i’m fond of 1000 yard stare, Let’s call it a day.. Won’t you see me.. actually i like all of them.. and the four songs we did with Cambaya. i think the catchiest is If your heart

Ian.. so you wrote and recorded all these songs in three days?

Emma .. More or less , they were like 15 hour sessions and Steve and i were writing at night as well..looking back i dont how we did it. i have written stuff before as i ve been to the fringe in Edinburgh a couple of times , and you have to work under a lot of pressure there , so it kind of came back
ian future plans.. ?

Emma ..We are going to Cambaya records in Antequera Malaga, that is Spain’s oldest and most respected blues label..Short Fuse recorded there in the Nineties.. and we’ll make an album from scratch.. of course this time we ll write all the songs first and rehearse with the band.. Will , Dave ,Steve, as the core band and Pete from blues Kitchen on sax and maybe a cajun fiddle Player  Steve met in London.  and a Spanish keyboard player

ian.. Will this be a blues album as well;?

Emma.. Oh yes , definitely , but originals..we have quite a lot of songs already written..we’ve been listening to a wider range.. There’ll be some Mississippi in there. as Will is a big Muddy Waters fan..some Texas.. but we were both born in London so we’re not hiding that.
John Lennon said Blues is the chair you sit on.. and that’s how i feel about it.. that one should start at the source.. and turn off your mind , relax and float downstream..so who knows where it will take us.

Ian.. thank you both and good luck