I have to quit saying “this show is the best of the year,” when I go to a blues show. However, I think a good couple hundred people taking in Steve 
Dawson’s Mississippi Sheiks tribute at Southminster United Church, Feb. 2 would agree this was one of the best of the year.
Del Rey, Jim Byrnes, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Steve Dawson backed by bassist Keith Lowe and drummer Jeff Hicks played their favourite Mississippi Sheiks songs.
Jim Byrnes was an affable host throughout the second half of the show and tipped his cowboy had to the applauding audience.
They each took turns singing lead and seamlessly shared solos on each song. Steve Dawson alternated between banjo, guitar and a Weissenborn guitar, with which he lead the group into the end of the night by playing the Sheiks’ best known hit “Sitting on Top of the World,” on which Del Rey, Jim Byrnes, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Steve Dawson each took turns singing lines of the song.
Del Rey alternated between National Steel guitar and a shiny steel ukulele. I’d never seen her before this show, but was impressed by her thin, reedy, jazz tinged voice which was reminiscent of a Bessie Smith or Little Miss Higgins.
She lead the band through an encore, noting “there haven’t been enough train songs being played tonight.”
