By Mark Bushell

If you’re a fan of Blues music and find yourself in Wood street E17 on a Monday night you’ll be surprised to discover one of the City’s best free music sessions. Running since 2003 and hosted by The Blues Filled Saucepan, a band with a long history of playing authentic ‘down home, Thames delta, Blues’.

Three of the core members, keyboardist Alan Cohen, drummer Richard de Friend and vocalist and harmonica player Mark Beedle started playing together whilst still at school in the1960s, influenced and inspired by the great blues revival of those times led by musicians such as John Mayal’s Blues breakers, Alexis Korner and Long John Baldry.

Bass player Simon Mosely, regarded as a relative newcomer, has been with the band for less than 30 years, whilst lead guitarist Adrian Petryga is a highly accomplished musician with some professional past experience of playing the blues, having played with such luminaries as the legendary Howlin’ Wolf.

Monday night at The Plough is a relaxed and informal night with a welcoming atmosphere encouraging aspiring and accomplished local musicians to participate in spontaneous improvised and rehearsed sessions that honestly convey the spirit of this essentially black American folk idiom that can only be described (for the academics out there) as being ‘a cornerstone of western European popular music and youth culture’, laying the foundations for what we now refer to as Jazz, Soul, R’n’B, Rap and Hip Hop.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of these sessions is the diversity of participants in terms of musical ability, age and cultural back ground, an enthusiasm to play all styles of blues and related genres, continuing the traditions of Chicago blues, acoustic country, 1930s jazz, gospel and bluegrass, to more experimental forms like blues/rap fusion.

Unlike so many pub sessions where musicians will indulge themselves and their audience with notions of purist but often self indulgent interpretations, Blues Filled Saucepan are amateurs in the best sense, playing with a love of the music and a commitment to its ongoing development whilst providing a stage for others to do the same, providing an always memorable night of live music. Trumpeter extraordinaire Miles Davis once said “There are only two types of music in the world, good and bad”!

What happens at The Plough on a Monday night is without doubt one of the best examples of ‘Good Music’ anywhere, empowering musicians and enabling a local community to share a cultural heritage that has shaped our understanding of the role of music……. That very human need to ‘get down an’ boogie!’