Mike Slide guitar, guitar, vocals	Ken Electric and acoustic guitars	Gary Blues harp	John Drums, washboard	Wolf Bass, acoustic guitar

A Welshman went into a pub with a Canadian, an Englishman, an Englishman (with a Scottish name) and a German - and they played the blues. Introducing … The Wandle Delta Blues Band.
Many thanks to Richard Carboni for the pictures below taken at the Bulls Head recently.
	Mike comes from Liverpool - ex-photographer, now multimedia teacher / freelance and bottleneck blues guitarist. His Dad, Tom Gilbert, 1st Clarinet with the Liverpool Philharmonic, tried to teach him that instrument at the tender age of 9, but it didn't work out. When 12, he bought his first blues record, a Jimmy Reed EP, and a year later got a Leroy Carr/ Scrapper Blackwell LP for Christmas, which got him seriously hooked. He spent an awful long time learning to play blues music by his heroes Elmore, Robert, Mississippi John, Muddy and the Blind Willies et al on acoustic guitars but in 1994 was given an Epiphone Sheraton semi-acoustic electric guitar by his brother Paul, also a blues man (The real blues brothers!). With this he went public and played break spots with a number of South London bands, eventually sharing gigs with Harry Kane in Deptford and Tooting. During this time he realised that he could sing. In 1997 he started running blues jam sessions at the "Cat's Back" in the Wandle Delta, Wandsworth, and later ran a jam in Chelsea for a period in 1998. In the late summer of 98, he put together a band, which played to a storm of applause at the "Leather Bottle" in Earlsfield, Wandsworth, SW London. This scratch band eventually became the Wandle Delta Blues Band and played a further series of garden gigs at that pub during the summer of '99 bringing in large crowds. Mike lives, eats and drinks the blues. He spends hours listening to old vinyl and likes nearly everything old-fashioned, especially his music and his VW. He previously spent much of his non-blues time as Course Director for Multimedia and Web Design at Cavendish College, London teaching Flash and Director and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, he was recently made redundant from that post and is looking for further teaching work.
	K
Ken Morton's first guitar (£2.50 from Exchange and Mart) nearly broke his fingers and he's been taking revenge on the instrument ever since - hear those strings bend 'til they break. Already into blues by the late '60s British boom, he was particularly influenced by Freddie King and BB King, Buddy Guy, Hendrix as well as some Brit bands. Played on and off with several bands and improv groups in the '60s and '70s and then solo until meeting Mike in the mid '90s. Prefers really miserable blues - 'tears and wailing', but plays 'good time' after sufficient inducement. He plays a modified Strat mainly, but has a unique Kawai electric and a Columbus Washburn copy electro-acoustic for gigging as well. He uses a Marshall 80W combo amp.
	Gary Lambert plays a mean blues harp and uses a fabulous old Vox amp with the weirdest shape you have ever seen. He's worth seeing just for the amp! (not in this picture) Uniquely, he plays the harp back to front - that's what comes of being self-taught! Sounds great, anyway! Gary got into the blues at the age of 12 listening to John Mayall's "Crusade" album and has among his favourite players Little Walter, Charlie Musselwhite and Paul Butterfield. He's played the South London circuit for years and was often seen with the OT Band, Harry Kane's MoneyMakers and was in a band called the South Circular Blues Band a while ago. Often seen burning drivers up on his gorgeous red and black Harley!
John Buchanan learned to play the drums at school. Orchestral percussion with Mr. Flower; some things you never forget. What he really wanted was to be a jazz drummer. His hero was Joe Morello who played with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. There are two great Joe Morello moments that come to mind. The first, and it's more than a moment, comes in the middle of a Dave Brubeck piano solo. Joe seems to be saying to the bass player, Eugene Wright, "I think that those two women over there might be up for it later. Do you fancy that?" Gene Wright might be saying, "I don't know, Joe, the wife you know". And Joe Morello says, "Don't worry about it." Suppose rhythm sections never change (but they were playing in 7/4). The second moment comes when, in the middle of a dazzling drum solo ("Sounds of the Loop"?), Joe Morello, wearing a sharp Sixties suit and a very narrow tie pushes his horn-rimmed glasses back on his nose. That's one thing John can do. Not much you might say to do with the Blues. But it does show an approach to playing music as a part of life rather than separate from it, and that in John's view is what the Blues is all about.
	Wolfgang Gutscher joined the band recently and comes from Stuttgart (Germany). Ever since he heard his first Howling Wolf LP he had this tickling in his fingers. Early public displays of the condition happened in the late 70s as a finger style guitarist in Berlin. There are still a few vinyls gathering dust away in some backroom from his days with Kettenhunde (Chain-dogs), Aufwind (Upwind) and other bands. He came to London in 89 to start his guitar-making career. Since then his mind has been completely absorbed by the artisan activity. He has a workshop in Clerkenwell (central London), where he makes acoustic guitars (mainly classicals, sometimes flamencos, roundback-steelstrings and custom modifications). http://www.gutscherguitars.com Just recently, one of those blues brothers (Mike!) crossed his path. There you are, picking the bass again and, well, he doesnt sing the Swabian blues anymore. He has recently added ragtime and bottleneck numbers to the band's repertoire, which he plays and sings in our acoustic sets.