The last time Andy Cowan played the Majestic Theatre in Pomona, it was a two-hander with old mate Barry Charles almost two years ago, and the virtuoso singer-songwriter-musicians brought the house down.
Expect similar fireworks when the Noosa hinterland resident, whose soulful Ray Charles’ voice and dazzling piano and keyboards style has been entertaining audiences all over the world for almost 50 years, presents a night of great music backed by his new band, Big Mama’s Door.
A fixture on the Australian music scene, Andy is sometimes known as the King of the Keys. His style massages the soul-blues-R and B idiom in an acoustic jazz format. Blues has always been at the core of his work, but it is the emotional quality of his earthy voice, soulful piano-playing and the diversity he displays as a songwriter and interpreter that have helped make him one of the best live performers in Australia.
Andy received Blues Album of the Year 2000, Blues Performer of the Year 2001, Male Performer of the Year 2003 and was an ARIA nominee for his 10.30 Thursdays CD.
He was also awarded second place at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee in 2002. He has arranged and performed on movie soundtracks, including the Australian cult classic Stone and has toured internationally and across Australia for four decades. In the ‘70s and ‘80s Andy was a hired gun for legendary Australian bands, Madder Lake, Ayers Rock, Kevin Borich Express, and Renee Geyer, to name but a few, and also guested with Skyhooks on keyboards.
For those who need a bit of a memory jolt on Andy’s local connection, he told Noosa Today in 2021: “I’d just left Madder Lake in ’73, and my grandfather was a mad fisherman who’d been coming to Noosa since the early ‘60s, so my wife and I came up from Melbourne to see him and spend a week or two in Noosa. I walked down Hastings Street and there was a sign in the window of the hot dog joint: ‘Keyboard player wanted’. Where do you see that! We ended up staying a couple of years.”
The band Andy joined was called Bunky’s, and alongside Barry Charles’ Rockets, they kept Noosa’s pubs and clubs rocking all those years ago.
The members of Big Mama’s Door have an equally impressive pedigree.
Christian Dunham (electric and double bass) is best known in Australia for tours with Matt Moffitt, Margaret Urlich and Kevin Borich. Overseas he has played bass for Emily Maguire on concert hall tours in the UK, supporting American legends Don McLean and Doctor Hook. Duncan MacQueen (drums, percussion). Duncan has played clubs, TV, and session work in Australia and the US, working in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Nashville and Austin, Texas. Special guest at the Majestic, Doc Span will be well known to Sunshine Coast blues lovers. The US expat has spent a life on the road, performing, writing, and recording, and has shared stages with the likes of Screaming Jay Hawkins, Kevin Borich and Jon Lord (Deep Purple).
Andy Cowan and Big Mama’s Door will play the Majestic Theatre Pomona from 7pm on Saturday 15 April. Tickets $30 available at trybooking.com/events
