Fame's the name - Georgie returns to Hong Kong for gig
It doesn't feel like almost seven years since Georgie Fame last played Hong Kong, but it is. At 71, the veteran British performer who started out as a rock'n'roll pianist continues to make varied and interesting solo albums.
Time flies. It doesn't feel like almost seven years since Georgie Fame last played Hong Kong, but it is. He's back this Friday and Saturday, at the same venue, Grappa's Cellar, and with the same musicians - Eugene Pao on guitar, Paul Candelaria on bass and Anthony Fernandes on drums.
They probably won't need much rehearsal time. The four of them worked up a rapport over several stints in the 1990s at the old Jazz Club in Lan Kwai Fong, although back then Dave Packer was on hand to fill in for an entire horn section on harmonica, and to play piano when Fame stood up to sing.
Alongside his voice, the veteran British performer's first instrument is the Hammond B-3 organ - he still plays the same one he bought in 1966 - but it isn't travelling with him. As he did last time, he will be using a Yamaha stage piano which also offers good sampled organ sounds.
Fame, now 71, started out in England as a rock'n'roll pianist in the late 1950s, and backed many of the most successful of the first wave of British rock singers, as well as visiting Americans such as Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.
The first incarnation of the band with which he made his name, the Blue Flames, was formed as a backing group for Billy Fury, but Fame's own career took off when he and the Blue Flames launched what turned out to be a three-year residency at the Flamingo Club in London's Wardour Street.
That steady gig produced the classic 1964 live album Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo, on which Fame covered what was at the time a notably hip selection of tunes, including Jimmy Forrest's Night Train (a hit for James Brown), Nat Adderley's Work Song (with the Oscar Brown Jnr lyric), and Mose Allison's Parchman Farm.