It is the First Friday of 2012!

A very happy year to you all.

Last night at Burgundy's was the first gig of 2012 and we had a few surprises. It was meant to be Robin Sunflower on Harmonica/vocals with the John Ellis Quartet from Manchester.

But no Robin!! john had brought Kirsty Almeida with him from Manchester and they had actually come 80 miles on the train with keyboards etc - what an adventure! This was Kirsty's first visit to Kendal and we had no idea what this new group would be like. But we were full of expectation.

So the gig started with John Ellis on keyboards, Mo Witham on guitar and Ted Richards on drums with the introduction that Kirsty would join in for a few numbers later.

The first number "Caravan" was great as these 3 guys are such accomplished musicians with such talent and creative interaction between them. In the second number I started sketching ]Ted, a face that is so familiar to me from previous sketches. Then Kirsty joined and as soon as she picked up the microphone we could see that she was at home and then entertained us with her beautiful laid back voice. We were enthralled. Although we had not heard of her before in Kendal, the rest of the world had as I discovered when I checked her out later

Sorry Ted, but I was totally inspired by the challenge of doing justice to the beautiful lady with the incredible voice. My sketch tries to capture this. She did check up on my progress and I encouraged her to keep singing so I could finish it - any excuse!! She was even interested in my Isabey brushes - how could I maintain the necessary concentration!!

I do hope she comes back to Kendal or I will have to go to Manchester, Birmingham or London for the next chance to see her and improve on this sketch.