Ben Andrews

One of my favorite things about Washington DC is that Ben Andrews plays and sings the blues at the Madams Organs club in Adams Morgan every Tuesday night. I realized how much I missed Ben Andrews when I spent 18 months in Argentina and would ocassionally have a hankering for his show.... I started checking him out about 1996 so its been a while.. I even have friends that made a documentary about him- i was at the show the night they had the film equipment set up and shot the concert- which unfortunately still sits at the cutting/editing stage...

He'll play from about 9 until closing.. set after set..and intersperse the show with anecdotes about the blues musicians and their songs... he'll tell ya "i met mississippi john hurt in the 1980s.. he used to live (he'll wave his arm) over by columbia avenue on top of the..."...highlights are many and include songs by blues heavyweights such as Blind Willie McTell etc.. if you go hear him and you are not too familiar with the history of the blues you are likely to hear many blues songs you associate with say Allman Brothers (Statesboro Blues) , Led Zeppelin (Gallows Pole; a Ben Andrews highlight), etc.. he'll even play the ballad of casey jones which of course the Grateful Dead adapted, etc...usually he plays by himself... but he's a one man band! with the foot stomping rhthym and the guitar.. its powerful stuff.. sometimes he has an accompanist on harmonica or what have you..

In any case I was perusing the web and came across a British blues club which has a feature on Ben Andrews who it seems has played there on ocassion.. I think the feature does a great job of introducing the reader to Ben and it can be found at:

http://www.crawleyblues.co.uk/bensnews.htm

I have not been to hear Ben since February or so and I think tomorrow I'm going to have to stop by and check him out again..