It’s not every day you see a young guy in his twenties
dissecting early twentieth century blues music down your local pub. Even rarer is an
artist tracing their exposure to the genre back to the age of five, but Sunjay
is not your average performer. By exposing an incredible surplus of technical
skill in working the whole length of his guitar from vigorous chord changes to
expert picking, Sunjay reveals himself as a high class interpreter of folk
blues drawing many plaudits from a variety of industry sources. For his fourth
album, BLACK & BLUES, Sunjay chose Katie Fitzgerald’s in Stourbridge as the
launch location and entertained the sizable gathering with a comprehensive
compilation of songs that have been special to him since the outset of his
performing and recording career.
Sunjay continues to evolve as a performer in lavish assured
portions, with a finely tuned wit added to the repertoire alongside the
exquisite playing and developing vocals. The ear for picking a successful tune
to interpret is acute, whether delving into the blues archives, sharing the
songs of his peers or choosing something more contemporary. Tonight’s show was
packed with all three of these strands and despite seeing him perform regularly over the last couple of years, this was the first time in a trio format.
Essentially this was predominately as a duo with fellow Stourbridge musician
Eddy Morton on bass and mandolin, but for a handful of songs after the break,
the blues style was ramped up with the harmonica participation of Lee Southall.
One surprising aspect of the show was that Sunjay chose to
only share four of the songs from BLACK & BLUES among twenty-one numbers forming
a near two hour set list. It’s tough to pick a stand out song from this quartet as ‘Drop Down Mama’, ‘You Don’t Learn
That in School’, ‘Nobody Wants to Know You When You’re Down and Out’ and ‘Trouble in Mind’ each have similar merit
when getting the Sunjay guitar treatment. On a personal front, the most
pleasing songs he chose to add to the album were ‘Pallet on the Floor’ and ‘Please
Don’t Go’. Maybe these are standards which have transcended the blues world,
but the versions are excellent and would have sounded superb live. However what
was put on the menu did his talent justice and contributed to a successful
evening.
BLACK & BLUES was once again produced by Morton who has
worked closely with Sunjay throughout his career and prominently on the three
other records. The eponymous titled record released last year is still fresh in
the 2015 set lists of Sunjay and during the show we enjoyed renditions of Tom
Rush’s ‘No Regrets’, Mark Knopfler’s ‘Sailing to Philadelphia’ and the John
Hiatt classic ‘Memphis in the Meantime’.
On this previous studio outing, Sunjay cut one of Morton’s songs in ‘London Road’ and this proved a popular
number this evening alongside another Morton composition ‘Faith Healer’.
Sunjay’s pedigree as an enterprising entertainer continues
to grow with a strategic decision to add ‘I’m
into Something Good’ to his shows creating a suitable opportunity to engage
with the audience on a shared vocal basis. This like some many of his songs is
introduced by a story often tinged with humour but forever informative. He
spoke of the decision to play ‘Street
Riot’ in the wake of recent events as the song recounts, through the words
of Roger Brooks, a violent event in Paris forty years ago. Like so many of his
other shows seen over the last couple of years, Sunjay opens with a medley of
his 'hit' and acknowledgement of how his performance of ‘Love You Like a Man’ played a significant part in attracting a BBC Radio
2 Young Folk Award nomination in 2012.
Although you can make a strong case for suggesting that
Sunjay’s heart is in the blues, his live shows are almost exclusively on the
folk circuit, but then the roots nature of both genres are intrinsically
entwined. In 2015 Sunjay has played with Chris Smither cementing the Americana
tinge to his style, while next year support slots are lined up with folk
luminaries Pentangle and Fairport Convention. Either way he is set to be in
demand for a long while to come and thus get plenty of opportunities to sell
copies of the new record plus the older albums at many shows in the near future.
The curtain to this album launch show was brought down with
a blistering, finger picking version of Bo Diddly’s ‘Who Do You Love’, complete with spell blinding guitar solo. Prior
to this there was a hint of fresh material in the pipeline with the song ‘Crocodile Man’ being presented as a
possible candidate for a future album. However let’s not race ahead too quickly
on the evening BLACK & BLUES was formally launched. Just to add a few more
facts to the record, the album consists of ten recordings with ‘Duncan & Brady’, ‘St. James Infirmary’, ‘Delia’
and ‘One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer’
completing the line-up alongside the six previously mentioned tracks. The album
was recorded in a single day under license to New Mountain Music and is awash
with a lightly produced authentic appeal to make its purchase a sensible
decision.
Although Sunjay regularly plays gigs in his home West
Midlands region including several support slots at the Stourbridge Folk Club
nights he hosts, there are also many other venues across the country which book
his talent to appear. Catching one of these shows and owning a copy of BLACK
& BLUES should be on many folks' New Year resolution list. Being impressed
is a total given and supporting the future of roots music via a young
performer is a worthwhile act.
