South by South East

The Chapel, Broadstairs

After a long hiatus, reverb is back on track with news from London and Broadstairs – that sleepy seaside town in the south-east of England has got a few tricks up its sleeve.

London as ever is a great place to get your teeth into all that is musical, but my travels took me further afield to Kent. The Chapel – formerly the Albion bookshop, is now a micropub. The venue remains a bookshop with amazing volumes to peruse through at your leisure while supping local ale and wine. Evenings at The Chapel transform this lovely booky haven into a small venue for local musicians to take part in Jazz open stage nights and open mic nights for budding songwriters and performers alike. It ‘s here where I met Nyle Holihan, a half Californian, half Kenyan 20-year-old studying in East London – more to the point he’s an amazing banjo player. He plays old-time folk banjo in the frailing style, along with harmonica, guitar and some fiddle. The songs he played were all traditional, mostly Appalachian, American folk songs, Shady Grove, Country Blues, Roustabout and Cindy. He says he started playing banjo as he knew a family that played in a bluegrass band together, he loved the sound of the banjo but bluegrass was too abrasive for him. And as was already a big fan of Dylan it wasn’t a stretch to reach back a bit past Woody Guthrie and listen through The Anthology of American Folk Music to pick up some tunes.

Unfortunately the recording I have of Nyle doesn’t do him justice to load up on reverb but I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from him in the future and I hope he’ll send me some footage of his talent so more news on him I hope very soon.