I’ve crossed the Eastern continental divide. I have no idea what that means geologically or geographically but it sure sounds impressive. It makes me feel like some sort of explorer with a pick axe and a coil of rope at the frontier of something or other so I’ll take it. I’ve been driving through the […]

The one-man travelling road show starts here… A sleek silver Amtrak train has just taken my photographer/documenter and friend Geoff back to New York. Expect selfies from here on in. I get back in the red mobile and hit the road, narrowly avoiding a costly mistake at the first gas station where I almost put […]

A Long bank of black clouds chased us out of NYC, pushed us over the bridge into New Jersey towards the legendary turnpike. A couple of black birds of prey wheel overhead and give the impression that at any moment we may be heading into open country. It’s a false impression as the landscape becomes […]

I’ve just left the Lincoln centre after an hour-long show. It’s super humid outside. “It’s like Vietnam round here.” says my photographer Geoff, and he would know. I’m writing this from a taxi as we pass the Dakota building and the Lennon memorial in Central Park. I’m once more heading back uptown to Harlem; the […]

No use switching to French in New York taxis to avoid being understood; they all speak French. Either it’s a coincidence and we just happen to book the ones driven by Senegalese every time or like the Russian court in the 19th century it’s once more become the lingua Franca and no one told us. […]

I have a flask onstage. I sip from it between songs. It’s not a hip flask or a cool leather-bound whisky sipper. It’s the sort of flask your grandmother used to take to the beach. “What’s in there?” Shouted someone from the audience last week in France. So I told them but they didn’t believe […]

I stepped off the subway train and the station clock clicked from 23.59 to 00.00. Maybe I was in a bad horror film. One thing was for sure. I was in the Bronx, it was midnight and I was not supposed to be there.  But that was last night and today I’ve promised myself that […]

Sunday morning. I can’t walk more than 50 metres without hearing a preacher’s sermon or hallelujahs from the half open church doors. People are filing in with takeaway coffees. Refreshments and salvation all in rolled into one. Those are the only two things on offer round here at 8.30am in Harlem on a muggy morning […]