The "greatest front-porch blues band in the world"

Offering themselves as “the greatest front-porch blues band in the world,” the Big Damn Band play The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth on October 11.

Spokesman James Wallace said: “They are led by Reverend Peyton who is considered to be the premier finger-picker playing today.

“Rev has earned a reputation as both a singularly compelling performer and a persuasive evangelist for the rootsy, country blues styles that captured his imagination early in life and inspired him and his band to make pilgrimages to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to study under such blues masters as T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour, and David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards. “Reverend Peyton is accompanied by his wife, the washboard virtuoso, Washboard Breezy Peyton, and kept on time by the deep rhythms of Jacob ‘The Snakob’ Powell.

“Their latest record, Honeysuckle, was produced and recorded by Reverend Peyton and mixed by eight-time Grammy winner Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White). The record features many special guests, including gospel music group The McCrary Sisters on the song Manger, Blues Music Hall of Famer and Grammy-nominated harmonica player Billy Branch who plays on the Blind Lemon Jefferson song Nell (Prison Cell Blues), Grammy award-winning and IBMA's ten-time Fiddle Player of the Year Michael Cleveland plays on Freeborn Man and Colton Crawford from The Dead South plays banjo on The Good Die Young.

“The album artwork features classic wet plate photography by Bill Steber, the legendary photographer who has documented blues culture in Mississippi for the last 30 years.”

Reverend Peyton said: “This record is a bit of a return to my roots, a very personal mix of old and new songs that shaped me or that I'm currently shaping. It's the most acoustic record we've made in years, using all vintage equipment: microphones, guitars, and recording gear, and a lot of me and my National guitar. There is a smattering of Big Damn Band thrown into the mix to spice things up, and a short list of legends that I've always dreamed of collaborating with.”

The first single/video, Honeysuckle, features Rev Peyton on solo acoustic on an old National Guitar.

He said: “I’m so honoured to have my friends, The McCrary Sisters, singing on this song. They truly elevate it beyond what I had dreamed possible. When I was a kid, my mom told me that sometimes strangers you encounter were angels in disguise. Inspired by that memory, and gospel songs like Blind Willie Johnson’s Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right, I built the song up from a riff I had been working on. I had been doing walking bass lines on the low strings while keeping triplets on the high strings. I was so proud that the McCrary Sisters liked the song enough to be a part of it. They certainly sing like angels.”