Monday 2nd February sees a welcome return of The Black Cat Jook Band.

The band are made up of:

Doug Wightman (vocals/tea-chest bass/ kazoo), Jan Wightman (vocals/guitar/mandolin), Dave Burnett(vocals/guitars/ukulele) Steve Gellatly (tuba/jug/washboard) and Rod McAra (vocals/harmonica/washboard).

All the members come from different musical backgrounds but come together in a shared love for the blues in all its forms. Way back in the Jurassic era, Doug, Jan, and Rod played together in the Smokey Holler Jug Band, then, inspired by Jan’s folky past, Doug and Jan spent some years singing traditional Scottish music.

They were in fact founder members of the Glenfarg Village Folk Club, and some older members may recall their performances on a variety of esoteric instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, concertina, portable harmonium and mandola.

The TMSA were foolish enough to award them with prizes for traditional singing and bothy ballads.

Dave is one of Scotland’s most accomplished guitarists with a distinguished career and a previous sideline in The Accelerators, a hugely successful rock’n’roll outfit with a C.V. which includes supporting Buddy Holly’s old band, The Crickets. Rod is a harmonica wizard and can thrash a washboard into submission with consummate ease. In the eighties however, for reasons best known to themselves, they got together to form The Elevators, who for more than a decade were one of Scotland’s leading electric blues bands.

They’ve eased up the volume and the pace now, to play a good-natured acoustic fusion of country blues, Vaudeville, ragtime, jug band music and old-timey, playing the music of Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Sonny Boy Williamson and others much more obscure. With Steve on tuba, jug and washboard, when he’s not playing piano for silent films, the band rolls with a solid bass.

Give your ears a treat and listen to something new and different. Help keep these people off the streets. Rediscover the forgotten pleasures of the kazoo. Lobby your MSP to have the tea-chest bass legalised in Scotland. Above all –have fun!

Check out Black Cat Jook Band Showcase