Duke Garwood tours Benelux and UK from now until mid-January

Duke Garwood has been impressively prolific over the last few years, including the second of two albums made with the late Mark Lanegan. This Kent-born maverick who cooks up a unique, heavy and blues-flavoured sonic stew, is also an integral part of The Quiet Temple, a psychedelic jazz collective with Soulsavers boss Rich Machin. If that is not enough in itself, there have also been two rather well-received solo albums – and last year the last one, Rogues Gospel, is ready to drop

Although Garwood recorded Rogues Gospel in the lockdown era of 2020, the overall aura is anything but claustrophobic chaos. His trademark dense, muggy blues sound is richly emotive, with a spacious quality that draws you in, much in the same way as Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack. Rogues Gospel could quite possibly be Garwood’s best solo offering yet. 

Recorded in the summer of 2020, Rogues Gospel is drenched with a feeling of freedom as Duke Garwood and drummer Paul May sheltered from the world outside. It was, Garwood explains, "a heat-soaked fever dream of our soul nectar in sonic form." Recalling the past, gathering the elements from the present, the two artists - whose knowledge of one another's playing is apparent throughout - work together with exquisite tones and percussive detail in this intimate recording. Garwood expands, "We began with the drum, and the things that shake and rattle, the drones of the heat, we sweated and we worked it until the night calmed us. We were free in our spirits when this was created, free from any desires to conquer and fill our pockets with the booty of success."

This month Duke Garwood and his band are over on the mainland for some dates followed by UK dates in December and January:

03/11: Folkestone, UK - Chambers
05/11: Uden, NL - De Pul
06/11: Antwerp, BE - De Roma
07/11: Antwerp, BE - De Roma
09/11: Brussels, BE - BXL Central
10/11: Eeklo, BE - N9
11/11: Lessines, BE - CC Rene Magritte
06/12: High Peak, UK - The Strines Nightingale
08/12:  Todmorden, UK - The Golden Lion
17/12: Cambridge, UK - Blue Moon
11/01: London, UK - Victoria Dalston
12/01: Barnoldwick, UK - Barnoldwick Music & Arts Centre
13/01: Barton Upon Humber, UK - The Ropewalk