IN CAMERA: Red Rooster Festival

When: 29th – 31st May 2025

Where: Euston Hall, Suffolk, England

Very sadly, the 11th annual edition of the Red Rooster Festival has now drawn to a close but,, as always, it has been an absolute pleasure and, as ever, it has taken place in the beautiful grounds of Euston Hall and featured some of the best Cajun, soul, rock’n’roll, blues, roots, and country music that is around today.

Under glorious early summer skies, Thursday evening eased us into this year’s event, but the Dutch psychedelic blues rock band DeWolff soon turned up the heat even further with a blistering set, something with which the brilliant American guitarist and singer-songwriter Samantha Fish followed suit a little later on. You surely don’t herald your arrival with the Faces’ ‘Stay With Me’ and open your set with a cover of the MC5’s call-to-arms classic ‘Kick Out The Jams’ unless you are pretty good, do you?

Early highlights on Saturday afternoon included the London based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Ella Spencer, who showcased her new single ‘Scotty’s Tyres’ and a couple of impeccable Townes Van Zandt and Gillian Welch covers on the festival’s second stage, Little Red Rooster; the fabulous American country cowpunk band, Jenny Don’t and the Spurs who fused some delightful Duane Eddy twang and Link Wray rumble into their sound; and a series of exciting and fast emerging acts who performed on the other side of the festival site’s picturesque lake and against a backdrop of the ever-popular river swimming on the intimate River Shack stage.

Come Saturday night and first the 19 year old, three-time winner of Young Blues Artist of the Year, Toby Lee and then the Jim Jones AllStars set the main stage alight with their respective full-throttle, incendiary take on the blues and rock’n’roll, before Mr David Viner slowed things right down with one of the best sets of the entire three days. Accompanied by a wonderful band comprising Alice Lascelles (cello), Ben Swank (drums), Richard Olson (guitar), and John Cheeseman (double bass), Viner was, to me anyway, a previously unknown pleasure. Check him out if you can.

That just left the fabulous Canadian rock’n’roll revivalists, Juno Award-winning band, and returning Red Rooster heroes, The Sheepdogs to close out the main music programme for the day before handing over the entertainment baton to the late-night Howling Woods DJ tent.

And then on the last day of the festival on Saturday, the sun, Stetson hats, and dungarees were all again out in force for another fabulous time spent in the company of Red Rooster. Just flown in from Nashville, Tennessee by way of York, North Yorkshire, country-pop singer Twinnie gets the party going, followed by the American country-blues musician Jontavious Willis who really knows his way round that electric guitar.

When such as Bruce Springsteen and the Gaslight Anthem achieve international stardom it remains one of life’s abiding mysteries as to why Danny and the Champions of the World are not mentioned in the same breath. This was yet another brilliant performances by them.

There is still time left this year, though, for Gill Landry, the man from Louisiana, former Old Crow Medicine Show member, and eternal lover of sad songs; The Altons and Thee Sinseers, both from East Los Angeles and mining the same superb R&B and soul seam; and the festival’s main headliner, retro rock’n’roller JD McPherson to close out yet another fantastic Red Rooster Festival.