The Dirt Road Band, with Horace Panter on bass, Steve Walwyn on guitar and vocals, and Ted Duggan on drums, will play at Henry’s Blueshouse on Tuesday 16 December.

They will treat music lovers to the “up close and personal” experience during what is a free admission show on the ground floor bar of Snobs on Broad Street.

 Panter’s career has included 42 years in The Specials, while Walwyn spent 32 years with Dr Feelgood, and Duggan has played drums for Badfinger, The Beat and The Selector. The trio have been regularly touring as The Dirt Road Band since 2022.

Jim Simpson, the city’s seasoned music impresario who runs Henry’s Blueshouse every Tuesday via the Big Bear Music company, said: “What a great pre-Christmas treat this will be for music lovers.

“The Dirt Road Band play hard, punchy blues-rock music that really makes your heart beat faster, and it will be incredible to see such an up close and personal set at Henry’s.”

Simpson first ran Henry’s in the late 1960s at The Crown in Birmingham, where early bands included Earth – who he initially managed as they went on to invent heavy metal as Black Sabbath.

He added: “We are expecting a fully packed house as fans of two-tone, ska, rock, and rhythm and blues turn up to see their heroes.”

Steve Walwyn explained how The Dirt Road Band was looking forward to its date at Henry’s because they love playing to small audiences at cosier venues.

He said: “It’s where we all started, up close with the audience, and it’s always a great atmosphere. Of course it’s nice to play bigger venues, but the atmosphere of a small, packed venue is hard to beat. That’s the beating heart of rock ’n’ roll in my opinion.

“Our music boils down to simplicity and honesty, we’re a stripped-back three-piece which is pretty well as simple as it gets, blues-based but we get to rock out too!”

Walwyn revealed that his partnership with Panter and Duggan goes back to the early 1980s. He said: “In Horace’s case, we both played in The Mosquitos, a Leamington-based blues band with a shifting line-up depending on who was available to play a gig.

“On one occasion, Horace was playing with The Mosquitos at the Green Dragon pub in Stratford-upon-Avon when Ghost Town was riding high in the charts.

“Ted and I had played in Red on Red – a Leamington rock band which achieved some success in the mid-1980s. We put The Dirt Road Band together and curiously, although Ted and Horace were both from Coventry, they had never played together until our first rehearsal.

“But within a couple of minutes playing together it was obvious that we had something, and what began as a fun side-project has now taken centre-stage.”

The Dirt Road Band’s debut album Righteous has received critical acclaim, and the musicians are planning a follow-up some time in 2026.

The Dirt Road Band’s full schedule of live shows is HERE and the latest Henry’s Blueshouse listings are HERE.