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Notodden Blues Festival, Norway 2005
In early August, Scotty and I traveled to Europe for a total of five shows, the first three in Norway at the Notodden Blues Festival on the 5th, 6th and 7th. Scotty has performed at Notodden twice before, and we have both thought it was one of the most beautiful places we have seen before. I cannot come close to spelling or pronouncing the name of the beautiful hotel where all the artists stayed in Notodden. -something like Bolkesjo, but it was a gorgeous hotel in an even more beautiful setting.
The day that we arrived in London, we went to our good friends home,
Liam and Fiona Grundy, to spend the night before going on to Notodden
with Scotty's English Band the next day. The first night, we went to an
Italian restaurant near Liam and Fiona's home in Twickenham. This is us
around the table: Fiona, Liam, Jacques Vroom (our traveling buddy from
Dallas), Gail, Pete, Nuella (a friend of Fiona who had been with us in
Ireland in 2003), and Scotty. See the grin? He LOVES Nuella!
We were joined by Bucky Barrett and his fiancée, Gigi, to come with us to Norway along with the English band. Bucky played on each show as our guest artist. He was Orbison's last lead guitarist (see the handsome guy behind Roy in the "Austin city Limits" tv show). He is such a fine jazz guitarist, and he added something to the show that has not been there before. And they both added something to the trip! See the scrapbook page about their wedding in Stockholm, just a few days after the Norway gigs.
At the hotel, we saw a man whom we had seen at the Ponderosa Stomp last April. I don't know what he did on stage, but he had the most amazing hair I have ever seen. There is a picture of him with Bucky at the hotel, and he does not mind having us make pictures of his hair. Anna, our dear guide while we were there, spoke perfect English and went with us everywhere! She even took Gigi and me shopping in town! I was supposed to send her Scotty's book, but I lost her address on the next leg of the trip. Anna, if you see this, tell me your address at my email. She was lovely, and so was her family, who we met on Sunday.
Every day that we were at the festival, one of the stars, Solomon Burke, sat at the entrance to the dining hall greeting everyone! We called him "King Solomon on his throne"! Here he is with Dave Briggs, Pete Pritchard, Liam Grundy and Jimmy Russell. Solomon is and was one of the very early pioneers of Soul music. The Rolling Stones covered some of his songs on their early albums, such as "Everybody needs someone to Love" and "Cry to Me".
Jeremy Spencer, one of the founding members and original guitarists with Fleetwood Mac also performed at the Festival. Here he is backstage at the last show, which was in the town square in town inside a tent that held about 2500 people. Jeremy Spencer is a great blues slide player and as a result of their meeting at Nottoden, Dave Briggs has recently accompanied him for a DVD release.
This was our driver, Scotty and Anna. Again, I lost his name but I remember that he was a psychiatric nurse at a hospital there, and we teased him about taking leave from his work to deal with some TRULY CRAZY people (us!)
Gail Pollock
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| All photos on this site (that we didn't borrow) unless otherwise indicated are the property of either Scotty Moore or James V. Roy and unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited. |
