Product Description Harmonica virtuoso John O Leary is one of the legends of British blues, and in a career spanning forty years was a founder member of the Savoy Brown Blues Band, who turned British blues into a US stadium rock attraction, as well as playing with the John Dummer Blues Band, Mainsqueeze and a host of touring American bluesmen. For the last decade he has assembled line-ups of the best contemporary blues musicians for his extensive live work and recording and is a fixture at European blues festivals. This 2-CD set comprises the 2004 studio album Sins , previously privately released by John, and a previously unreleased live album recorded at Mr. Kyps club in Poole, Dorset. Review O'Leary was simply superb. Bearing down on the reeds with such powerful, precise tone on numbers such as 'Snatch It Back & Hold It' and 'Checking On My Baby', he lifted the performance to a higher level every time he took to the stage... --The Times About the Artist Back in 1966 Champion Jack Dupree described John O Leary as The best harp player since Sonny Boy Williamson . Over 40 years later when headlining the 2010 Junior Wells Memorial show, his band was described as Jammed up jelly tight with some low down dirty funked up grooves topped by killer licks. Tempered by boogie, swing & good time jamming, this is contemporary blues with a real edge . John O Leary has certainly come a long way since founding the rock/blues /boogie meisters Savoy Brown with Kim Simmons in 1966. John first fell in love with the blues when he walked into the The Ealing Jazz Club in 1962 and heard harp player Cyril Davies with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. He quickly learned his trade by listening to Cyril and other harmonica greats like John Lee Williamson, Sonny Terry, Little Walter, Noah Lewis, James Cotton, Shakey Horton and Junior Wells and gradually found his own style. Savoy Brown was an independent musical beginning and it also taught him about musical politics and ultimately how to be a band leader. And this double pack that you have kindly purchased excitingly fulfils his long term goal and musical vision. John s colourful musical CV includes Savoy Brown, John Dummer Blues Band (Joanne and Dave Kelly, Tony McPhee), The Famous Blues Blasters (with Kenny Shaw, Victor Brox, Dick Heckstall Smith, Pete Bardens) and Mainsqueeze with Keef Hartley, Keith Tillman, Eric Bell, Diane Wood, and even Bo Diddley. The prototype for the JOL Band actually proved to be the huge Belgrade Blues Festival where John fronted the Yugoslav blues band Pointblank. The subsequent album As Blue As I Can Be led to some surprisingly welcome album chart success. Perhaps the reason for John s musically diverse history is that quite simply he s a genuine blues man who never let clich� or limited musical horizons get in his way. Indeed as he explains it s his essential need to let the music be open ended that provides the back bone to both the albums and his musical outlook. When I first started the band I had the idea that I would try to get an authentic American sound but quickly discarded that notion in favour of seeing what would happen if I used musicians who were not exclusively blues players and who would not try to play in a traditional way.