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THREE outstanding roots musicians from across the British Isles are teaming up for an intimate night of country blues music at the Institute, Laxey.Karen Macleod, Gerry Cooper and John Gregory will be performing in the round on Saturday, February 21 2026.
This means all three musicians will be on stage at once, swapping stories and songs.
Tickets are available now for just £10!
‘Could we be on the cusp of a folk blues revival?’ David Osler - Blues Matters magazine! After hearing Karen’s latest album Low Road
Karen Macleod, from the Midlands, is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist and singer who plays an eclectic mix of Country Blues, Ragtime, American folk, Country and Bluegrass and also writes her own material. She spent two years living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia before hoboing across the USA on freight trains - you can expect to hear influences of these experiences in her well-crafted instrumentals and original songs.
Karen’s latest album Low Road has received several great reviews and has been featured on CERYS MATTHEWS BLUES SHOW on BBC Radio 2.
Gerry Cooper, originally from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and living in West Yorkshire, has recorded several albums as a soloist, as part of a duo with Phil Snell and as a trio with Bessie’s Blues.
The vast majority of his repertoire is country blues from the 1920s and 1930s and his favourite 'old time' blues artists are Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Tampa Red , Blind Willie Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy. More modern influences are Roger Sutcliffe, Steve Phillips, Stefan Grossman, Michael Messer, Catfish Keith and the late Woody Mann, all of whom he counts as friends.
John Gregory aka Blue John - who lives in the Isle of Man - has been performing country blues for nearly two decades.
Over the past few years he has toured the British Isles with some of his acoustic blues heroes from the US - Ari Eisinger (from Philadelphia), the Erin Harpe Country Blues Duo (from Boston) and Toby Walker (from New Jersey).
He has performed many times with blues legend Mississippi John Hurt’s biographer Dr Phil Ratcliffe and has travelled to Chicago to play Big Bill Broonzy’s guitar as well as opening shows for fingerstyle legend Duck Baker, jazz great Martin Taylor, blues rockers The Fabulous Thunderbirds and many others.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Laxey Working Mens Institute, Douglas, Man, Isle Of
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