BILL WYMAN’S RHYTHM KINGS
Albert Hall - Pete Clark

After all the fuss about the MTV awards, and young people with hardly any clothes on, it was time that popular music showed a little class. Bill Wyman never pretended to be the coolest guy on the block, but he knows to steer well away from the emperor’s new clothes and offer up some decent musical schmutter.
Sadly, this did not apply to special guest stars Chas ‘n’ Dave, but their hat and rabbit routine merely served to point up the excellence of the rest.
The Rhythm Kings are mostly a group of retiring stars. Albert Lee remains a great guitar picker without fanfare, while Georgie Fame is a relaxed professor of style behind a much-travelled Hammond organ.
Mike Sanchez plays the extrovert, assuming leadership of the group by default, as Bill Wyman is content to let his thumb do the talking on bass guitar, stolidly maintaining the air of a hard-done-by straight man from a Carry On film.
Guest stars came and went, most notably the turbo-lunged Sam Brown, daughter of Joe, a close-cropped Peter Frampton, and Mark Knopfler, who wears his blonde Les Paul guitar like an uncomfortable accessory, but plays it as if it were second nature.
The star of the show, entirely by design, is the music. From the opening bars of Let The Good Times Roll, we are deftly escorted through the less touristy parts of the musical canon, the path less well trodden.
Georgie Fame treats us to some Mose Allison and Ray Charles, Sanchez leads a storming Race With The Devil by way of the ghost of Gene Vincent.
Lonnie Donegan gets a tribute as the man who started some of this music rolling, some dues are paid to Chester Burnett, aka Howlin’ Wolf, as a master of the blues, and to JJ Cale as the king of rolling and rumbling rhythm.
What we have here are the treasures of a golden age – they are not often gathered together and put on display like this.
Watch out all you young people: the old folk are making a big comeback.