Blues

AFTER MIDNIGHT are the World's No1 Eric Clapton Tribute Band featuring front-man Mike Hall. In 2010 they are undertaking a 25th Anniversary Tour throughout the UK. The band was formed in 1985 in Newcastle upon Tyne long before the term “tribute band” was invented, and named themselves ''After Midnight'' after Eric Clapton’s first solo hit. Their ability to re-create Clapton’s electrifying stage performances really caught the audience’s imagination. In guitar/vocalist Mike Hall, the band possesses a front man who not only looks like Eric, he sings and plays guitar like him too!

Eric Bibb (b. 16th August 1951) is an American blues singer and guitarist, based in London, England, who has made his career largely in Europe. Eric was born In New York into a musical family. Eric's father, Leon Bibb, is a trained singer who sang in musical theatre and made a name for himself as part of the 1960's New York folk scene. His uncle was the world famous jazz pianist and composer John Lewis, of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Family friends included Pete Seeger, Odetta and actor/singer/activist Paul Robeson, Eric's godfather.

It began in a swamp. Well, in a Tipi in a swamp, with a telephone attached to an ironbark gum. This is not fiction. This is the cold smoking truth. The bearded man was born. Many years passed to the sounds of Tom Waits, AC/DC, Tim Buckley, The Black Keys, Pantera and Springsteen. The young bearded man moved to a bigger swamp filled with smoke and bars and girls. A land of knife fights and drug dens and muscle cars and rock’n’roll. He lost his way and began to despair. Half drowned in Jack Daniels he prowled his new domain.

From the liner notes of their debut album, "Twisted", released on Alligator Records: For thirty years, Rick Estrin was the voice and face of one of the country’s best-loved blues and jump bands, Little Charlie & The Nightcats. His huge harp sound, streetwise vocals, razor-sharp lyrics and hipster persona were as much the focus of the band as Little Charlie Baty’s hard-swinging and unpredictable guitar. In fact, Rick was so much the central figure of the band, most newcomers assumed that he was “Charlie.”