Ainsley Lister website

Youth. It’s a wonderful thing. Carefree days spent doing…well, sod all really. No pressure, plenty of doing very little constructively. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, so no need to worry about making those career decisions until you absolutely have to, right? Well, not if you’re Aynsley Lister.

At an age when most of us were doing very little between cramming for exams, Aynsley Lister was forging a career for himself amongst the very top flight of blues men, eschewing his youth and proving that you don’t have to be a middle aged black man at death’s door to play the blues convincingly and extremely competently….
Having played his first semi professional gig at 13 and visiting California soon after - where he jammed with a number of local luminaries and played support to Coco Montoya’s band in San Francisco - Lister can justly claim to have paid his dues. At 18, he put his first band together along with friends he would jam with and at this point sang for the first time. The natural progression was to record, and this he did, releasing his first album in 1996 on his own label, with a follow up live album released in '97. Pressed in small numbers, they sold well - 5,000 alone just at gigs!!.
At this point, he came to the attention of Ruf Records head honcho, Thomas Ruf, who liked what he’d heard and contacted Lister to say he was interested in signing him. Aynsley duly went over to Germany to play a couple of shows with Bernard Allison. They discussed a deal one morning over breakfast and agreed to make an album. In the October of 1998, he recorded the ‘Aynsley Lister’ album, and lo brethren, much was the celebration thereafter!.
Produced by American Jim Gaines (SRV, Santana), blues purists - aren’t all blues fans ‘purists’? - found much to admire in the spirited performances of Eddie Boyd’s ‘Five Long Years’, ‘She’s A Woman’ and ‘Soundman’ (the latter two both Lister originals), and the collaboration with blues demi-God Walter Trout on Gary Moore’s ‘Since I Met You Baby’ was pure plank spankin’ heaven..

It says much for Aynsley Lister’s confidence that he shines in Trout’s company. By contrast, an extremely interesting re-working of Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and the airplay friendly ‘Won’t Take You Back’ show that there’s much more to Lister than just blues-rock..
Testament to the live Aynsley Lister experience comes in the form of a few lines of sleeve notes from Gary Hood, organiser of the Great British Rhythm And Blues Festival, who says:.
“Each time Aynsley has played at Colne, the reaction has been the same, except the audience is getting younger and the adulation a lot louder…’.
….and you can’t say fairer than that!.
Aynsley also has an impressive list of support slots to his credit, including artists such as Bernard Allison, Buddy Guy, Jools Holland, John Mayall and Robert Cray.
2000 saw the release of the “American debut” album ‘Everything I Need’ produced by ex Hoax member Jesse Davey. With Europe firmly in hand, this was Lister’s first album for the US. The combination of more studio experience and Davey’s sterling production work made for a bigger album than Lister’s debut in a number of obvious - and a few less obvious - ways. Alongside bigger and brassier re-workings of first album favourites ‘Angel O’ Mine’, ‘Soundman’ and ‘Without You’ sit the eminently FM friendly title track and a super sensitive and stripped down version of the Hendrix classic ‘Little Wing’. Vocally, Lister is confident and assured. ‘Everything I Need’ is a major step forward for a young man with all the time in the world and all the ability he’ll ever need, but don’t take my word for it…..
“Exceptionally mature and exciting” – MOJO
“Superb” – THE TIMES
Still only 24, Lister has already achieved so much that it’s hard to believe that he hasn’t been around as long as most of his contemporaries. In truth, he has few real contemporaries. His age and the fact that he is British born separates him from most of the world’s great blues artists. Sure, Kenny Wayne Shepperd may be young, but being American has obviously made his rise to prominence easier than Lister’s. Lister’s following is currently much bigger in Europe than it is in England, and he regularly plays festivals to thousands of attentive continentals (having been billed alongside Bryan Adams and Fun Lovin' Criminals amongst others). This is, however, starting to change, and England is starting to really sit up and take notice. Having just been given his own monthly column in the top selling 'Guitarist Magazine' after being spotted at a music exhibition, it may not be too long before Aynsley Lister is very big news indeed!
Aynsley Lister is currently writing songs for his next album and, in deference to the influences that he has picked up from more contemporary acts over the last couple of years, he seems to be going more and more down the Rock route. The songs are apparently sounding very commercial and moving away from the blues a little - but that fire in the belly that he has brought to all of his endeavours thus far in his remarkable career is still very much in evidence..
…Amen to that!.


Aynsley's Band

Voted UK Rock Blues Band of the Year by readers of Blueprint (the magazine of the British Blues Connection)

James Townend - Bass

James, 27, has been playing bass for years, although only recently turning professional. Progress has been fast though, including studio work with Robert Miles (of UK number 1 'Children' fame), and live appearances supporting the likes of 'Spear of Destiny', and ex-'Babes in Toyland' singer Kat Bjelland's new band 'Katastrophy Wife'.
Another local lad, James hails from the same town as Alex. He spent many a day jamming in Alex's parents garage during his teenage years. Side projects include writing and recording with singer Anjeli, and designing his own custom MIDI controllers for the music industry when time allows. Be warned, James' energy and enthusiasm comes across at live shows, and is highly contagious!

Paul Winterhart - Drums
Ex-Kula Shaker drummer Paul has recently taken over from Alex and we will have his full biog here shortly!!!