Catfish came crashing onto the blues scene at the start of 2015 with their debut album So Many Roads going straight in at no 1 in the IBBA blues airplay charts after being taken to the hearts of the internet’s blues radio stations. After the death of BB King later in the year, Catfish released a tribute EP called ‘When BB Sings the Blues’. This also spent two months at no 5 in the IBBA chart and had excellent reviews like this one:
‘A captivating release from an immensely talented band and in Matthew Long they clearly have a star of the future in their midst, proving that contemporary Blues is in the safe hands of the next generation’. – Nigel Foster
Just 9 months after their first ever gig, they received two nominations in the 2015 British Blues Awards (emerging artist and keyboards), and followed that recently with three nominations in 2016 (band of the year, young artist for Matt Long and keyboards again for Paul). Paul was delighted to be the winner of the keyboards category and Matt was third in the Young Artist category.
In addition to the breathtaking guitar, stunning vocals and the tight musicianship of the band on the album, the key to the success of both the album and EP was undoubtedly the superb recording quality. Paul Long (keyboards and vocals) has been a recording engineer and live music producer all his working life and was able to bring all his experience to producing both. The new album Broken Man was released on 29th Jan 2017, almost all original material written by Matt and Paul. The only cover, the showstopping ‘Make it Rain’ written by Foy Vance, is always a highlight of any Catfish show
Catfish have played many of the major festivals including Bluesfest at the 02 on Matt’s 21st birthday last November, Maryport in Cumbria, Bluesrockfest in Kent, and they opened the blues stage at Cambridge Rock Festival. They have a number of festivals already booked for 2017 and will also be playing at several major blues clubs across the country.
Bio and photo source: https://www.facebook.com/pg/thecatfishbluesband/about/