She’s a Bristolian blonde bombshell who’s about to blast her beautiful brand of blues into the brains of boogie Britain; all rise for local legend Beth Rowley. With her debut album Little Dreamer now out, an accessible look at gospel and jazz with firm pop influences, SY catches up with Beth Rowley on a gloriously sunny afternoon on the Watershed bar balcony with super views of the city harbour. Naturally, conversation moves to Bristol and how she started out in the city:

“I love playing the Old Duke – that’s pretty much where I started off. I used to go down there all the time and you would always see the same people; people like Pete Roe who was working behind the bar. Once when I was 17 or 18 I went down for one of Eddie Martin’s open mic nights with just a song book and I said to Eddie is there anyone who can play piano? I just had the song book and I knew and loved all the songs and he said; ‘Oh yeah, Pete plays, the guy behind the bar. Hey Pete, do you want to come and play?’ He was well up for it – it’s exactly the sort of thing you do! So that’s when we first met and we continued working for a couple of years doing gigs and stuff. It’s where I met Fortune Drive too because they lived above the Old Duke.”

There’s that fantastic story about them where they’d all work in the pub downstairs then in the evening go upstairs and jam, then afterwards all pile downstairs again and get pissed!

“Yeah, it pretty much all just happened in the Old Duke pub. We used to rehearse there as well; we’d all share the rehearsal space because Pete lived there too.”

It’s kind of cool to think that that one pub has had a hand in so many Bristol artists’ careers.

“Definitely! Yeah, yeah! It was a really special time. You felt like you were really part of something cool, we were just all really into music. I’ve played so many gigs there - it was the real thing; all people just loving being together making music. I could just spend the rest of my life just singing in that pub!”

From these open mic beginnings, Beth Rowley has worked the Bristol circuit for some years now accumulating a large following, becoming the star attraction at the Acoustic Music Festival earlier this year and June sees her out on her first headline tour. Onwards and upwards! Rumour has it she might even be playing the Olympics soon! Blimey!

www.bethrowley.com

Matt Whittle
Photo: Max Dobson