Estonian guitar-picker Andres Roots offers a hardcore reshaping of the blues

The blues lives in every land, even those that we might not jump to identify as hotbeds. Therefore, the Estonian acoustic guitar-picker Andres Roots turned up in England and Wales for a fairly extensive March tour, by old-timey blues standards. Taking in Leamington Spa, Brecon, Birmingham, Newport and Huddersfield, Roots appeared in the good vibrationed café bar of the East Riding Theatre in Beverley, for the penultimate gig before his last stop of Bradford.

Unlike most blues troubadours, Roots doesn’t sing; he concentrates on hardcore guitar instrumentals, throwing all of his narrative content into a connecting weave of tales, explanations and historical observations, chatting with his audience between most numbers. Roots sometimes uses a bottleneck, and he also has a penchant for crafting low basslines, presumably boosted by the sound engineer, to plump up the vintage vistas. Speaking of which, Roots has quite a deep voice, but said technician failed to boost the treble, rendering some of his asides quite incomprehensible, even in this pin-drop atmosphere.

Roots makes his runs and slides sound relaxed and effortless, despite any challenging intricacies, allowing the gathered blues acolytes the luxury of stretching out and savouring the tunes. He’s skilled at fine picking, underlaid by a bulking bass presence. Roots sometimes emits a jazz mellowness, a pleasing roundness of tone, but still slidin’ deeply when the deft bottleneck starts gliding. He offers a lazy-shaped, floating original from a theatrical production staged in Tallinn, which he failed to see (twice) due to being out on summer tours.

Roots has recently released Royal Spa Blues, recorded at The Temperance in Leamington on his previous UK tour. That live basement set exposes the fact that Roots tends to spin the same patter at every performance, as the between-song stories were almost identical to those of this Beverley gig. He should strive to be more spontaneous. It’s alright the first time we catch him, but it could be a future problem for next time, unless he changes the formula.

Roots has a modernised appeal, but one that rears up from a pallet of vintage down-home US blues. Most of his instrumentals are self-penned, but he adds in touches of Jimi Hendrix (‘The Wind Cries Mary’), and closes the second set with ‘Come Together’, an attractively re-shaped Beatles ditty. Along with traces of tango, Hawaiian spuming and Manouche gypsy jazz, Roots shoves through the fences favoured by many blues songsters. He deserved an encore, but surprisingly, there was no return forthcoming…