“After playing rock music in bands since 1972, in 1990 I left the city & my youthful ambition to be a rock star behind, choosing a simple rural life in the hills south of Bridgetown. Some years later a friend casually introduced me to the old Country Blues & I thought why haven’t I ever heard this stuff before? Whatever those African Americans were doing was what I’d been searching for my whole life. 

I dove in head first & flailed around in this huge deep lake of regional guitar styles & players that is 1920’s & 30’s Country Blues until finally, overwhelmed, I drowned my white self in its hypnotic grooves & floated down through Piedmont, Texas, Mississippi Delta & Hill Country Blues way down past names & titles to the bedrock, those deep blues in all their difficult & beautiful African glory. 

Eventually I emerged reborn as a latter day Hill Country Bluesman with a deep love & respect for the artists who gave me this great gift through the study of their wonderful old recordings – those stunning performances on scratchy old 78rpm discs, often pressed using poor quality shellac. As a result some folk can’t get past the scratchety hiss, crackle & pops……all I can hear are the beautiful players…. Charley Patton, Son House, Willie Brown, Bukka White, John Hurt, Mance Lipscomb, Tampa Red, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell and so many more.” – Martin Lee Cropper.

Book a table here – https://sixdegreesalbany.com.au