Clapton and others for Phuket blues fest
Charlie Musselwhite is the headliner on Day 2 of the event. Photo by Mikesfox.
Woaaah! Clapton’s going to play in Phuket. Yup, that’s right – Clapton, Richard Clapton. From Australia… Poor guy must get this all the time, which is actually unfair. In his native Oz, Richard’s been an icon for a long time, and some of his melodic rock songs are still on every Aussie FM station playlist.
While he may not quite be up in the stratosphere with Eric, he’s been there and done that – went on the trail to London in the ’70s, and later to Germany, drawing applause from fellow troubadors Neil Young and Jackson Browne, before scoring critical and public acclaim as long ago as 1975, with his second album, Girls on the Avenue.
Richard is just one of the stars lined up for the Phuket International Blues Rock Festival, on February 26 and 27 at its usual venue in the grounds of the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa. He’ll headline Day 1 of the event.
Richard Clapton - big name in Oz.
The Phuket festival just gets better. The headliner on Day 2 is top blues harp player and vocalist Charlie Musselwhite. Originally from Mississippi, he cut his teeth in the Chicago blues scene in the early ’60s alongside such greats as Elmore James, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. He soared to fame with Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite’s Southside Band in 1966, and has since gone on to release more than 20 albums, and has guested on other albums by the likes of Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt and INXS.
The festival will feature six acts per night, including regulars the Rich Harper Band from the US, KNiKi from Australia, George Cordeiro and the Fai Jang Blues Gang, and local Phuket heroes Tony “Chainsaw” Wilson and Rob Davies. New to the festival next year will be world music band AkashA from Malaysia, Latino Blues meister Andy Gonzales, Robert “One Man” Johnson (both from the US) and Bangkok’s Retrovision.
For more information, contact Andy Andersen, Festival Director, at +66 (0) 86 682 2639; email: phuketmusic@yahoo.com, or visit the festival website. For tickets see this page.
