James Burton, Albert Lee, The Paul Hayes Collection & Friends on tour in July 2007
The Paul Hayes "Collection" of Guitar Legends are:
James Burton, guitar
Albert Lee, guitar, keyboards, voc
Susan Hedges, keyboards, vocals
The Collection:
Paul Hayes, vocals
Golly Goulding (lead guitar)
Garry Pugh (bass)
Wayne Barker (rhythm guitar)
Pip Mailing (drums).
plus The Passionates featuring Al Willard Peterson.
Special guest Vince Eager was advertised as well but had to pull out due to illness. Fortunately, he would join the band later for the rest of the tour.
The Paul Hayes "Collection" of Guitar Legends are:
James Burton, guitar
Albert Lee, guitar, keyboards, voc
Susan Hedges, keyboards, vocals
The Collection:
Paul Hayes, vocals
Golly Goulding (lead guitar)
Garry Pugh (bass)
Wayne Barker (rhythm guitar)
Pip Mailing (drums).
plus The Passionates featuring Al Willard Peterson.
Special guest Vince Eager was advertised as well but had to pull out due to illness. Fortunately, he would join the band later for the rest of the tour.
My comments:
A great night in Billingham. First time I got to see the legendary James Burton live onstage - shouldn't be the last time. James had played with an array of notable artists (Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Emmylou, Johnny Cash - just to name a handful of top-class musicians) and doesn't need any introduction. The venue was quite busy, and our heroes didn't keep us waiting delivering a packed show with a 30 minutes interval. Golly Goulding & The Collection with Paul Hayes opened the show with two songs, then James and Albert came on to huge applause. They started doing HELLO MARY LOU with Paul Hayes on vocals who was awesome. Paul is an English antiques expert and television personality so most of our UK friends may know him. I never saw him before but he is someone to remember, you could feel his love for pure rock'n roll, and the spark jumped over from the beginning.
To cut a long story short: a brilliant show with first class musicians, it was obvious that the band enjoyed playing to a very responsive audience. The Elvis fans had a ball when his songs were on.
The show also included the amazing voice of Susan Hedges and backing vocals from 'The Passionettes' featuring Al Willard Peterson. Susan Hedges did one Emmylou song and also COUNTRY ROADS later as a tribute to the late John Denver. Special guest Vince Eager was advertised as well but had to pull out due to illness. He would, however, join the show from the next gig on.
Albert also did two piano songs, LET IT BE ME by the Everly Brothers and REAL WILD CHILD which made the piano shake.
Not on the setlist, but also played was of course Albert's warhorse COUNTRY BOY as usual done in neckbreaking speed.
Nice to meet the lovely Jim Tait after show who used to book Albert Lee & Hogan's Heroes in the Durham area. Glad to hear that he has already booked them for next year. Also nice to meet Mary and husband from Newcastle, of course great to see the lovely Sue Hargreaves - and we all agreed that this show was quite a treat!
James and Albert were doing sort of a 'Meet & Greet' later in the bar area, an endless queue of dedicated fans waiting for signatures, photos or just to say HELLO to their heroes, at the end everybody got what they were looking for and no one left disappointed.
The ticket fee was £22.-- well spent, I thought this was good value for the money.
