Depending upon what Tam is asked to do, the line-up is adapted to suit.

The Herald reviewed the first appearance of The Tam White Celtic Blues Connection (January 1997; Fruit Market, Glasgow during the Celtic Connections festival) and the writer was moved to remark ...

... these cats smoke. Threads of jazz and funk lace their blues sound, and while they can raunch it up with the best of them, I was most impressed with the slower soulful numbers. Urban Nomads was a diamond; whispering brass and haunting harmonica providing a perfect bed for White's understated vocalisation on the subject of homelessness. Some question the legitimacy of new blues music in the nineties. But, as the man White says, one look at the world we live in should tell us it's as valid a genre as ever.

In late October 1997 the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting took place here in Edinburgh. Tam White's Shoestring took part in the entertainment programme and the following is a transcript from The Scotsman of Monday 27 October 1997 in which the gig is reviewed.

TAM WHITE
The Dome, Edinburgh

" ... Tam White's role as Scotland's pre-eminent resident blues-man is a cultural crossover which has increasingly worked against him. Give him a bodhran and a bagful of diddley-diddley tunes and he'd be off around the world surfing the wave of Celtic fashionability instead of labouring for the attention of an international blues audience which is still in nostalgic thrall to the English dinosaurs of the Sixties.

"But let's be thankful for small mercies. White remains a local treasure, his growly bass voice every bit the equal of any of his contemporaries, and ... Fraser Spiers and Neil Warden on dependable form.

"For this is no namby-pamby drumless trio. White's chunky guitar playing has become formidably percussive, and with impeccably rhythmic and melodic harp and guitar filling-in from Spiers and Warden, it is hard to imagine additional instruments being anything other than superfluous to a surprisingly powerful blast of sound."

Ninian Dunnett
The Scotsman
Monday 27 October 1997

TAM WHITE got straight down to the business of rocking a busy house, with his all-star band line-up including former Bad Company bassist, Boz Burrell, west-coast harmonica wizard Fraser Spiers and Neil Warden in superb form on lead guitar.

A seamless set spanning two decades of his work focused on his contemporary repertoire, encompassing a vast array of influences from folk, jazz and all the way to hip-hop. Several refreshing soul standards, such as Let The Good Times Roll were thrown in for good measure.

By now fiftysomething, his understated style and low, gravely voice do much to soothe the soul - and there was plenty of good-humored chat at the ready. Superb melodies, vacuum-tight arrangements, and an awesome musicianship are hammered home by his ability to make it all look so easy.

In an excellent two-hour show, White and his band were sounding great, perfectly suited to the Spiegeltent's general good vibe and cheer. A fabulous night.

Marlene Zwickler
The Scotsman
Friday 21 August 1998

The following review appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News on Monday 12 April 1999 after Shoestring played at Howden Park Centre in Livingston just to the west of Edinburgh on April 10.

From the moment Tam White's Shoestring plugged in their instruments and turned their attention on the audience, there was no escape.

Not that anybody wanted to. The set opened with Pollution Blues, a jagged-edge rock-blues number which lesser bands would be proud to offer as a rabble-rousing encore. And from there it just kept getting better.

Reminiscent of John Lee Hooker and Frankie Miller, Tam's gravel-and-broken glass voice is something that cannot be ignored. When he growls, "I was born to sing the blues", you believe him. Little wonder he was described by the late blues authority Alexis Korner as the greatest undiscovered blues talent of our time.

With that instantly recognisable voice, accompanied by an impossibly fragile Yamaha acoustic guitar, Tam would draw the crowds as a solo act. But the other two members of Shoestring weren't just there to hang on to his laces.

They helped to lift the gig into a whole new realm, and at times it was hard to believe that a trio could produce what amounted to a big band sound.

Dunfermline-based lead-guitarist Neil Warden danced his fingers along the fret-board, making it look ridiculously simple.

With a dexterity that defies logic, he moved through single-note picking to booming bar chords and funky riffs enhanced by deft touches of wah-wah. Harmonica player, Fraser Spiers made his high-voltage harp chuck, cluck and soar. When the mood required, it whispered softly, or screamed and roared with the subtlety of a fast approaching dive-bomber.

The sustained notes he wrenched from the instrument suggested he had somehow acquired the skill of drawing breath through the ears.

The audience loved it, yet few of them were hardened fans.

Rather, the majority turned up because they always went out on Saturdays, and this was the gig that just happend to be on. All were spellbound, and nobody felt the urge to argue when Tam eyeballed them and suggested it was time for a spot of audience participation.

Numbers like Born Under A Bad Sign penned by Booker T Jones; the autobiographical Stonemason's Blues with its mesmerising five-note riff; and Man Dancin' had the audience whistling, tapping their feet and clapping their hands.

Yet the subtle treatment of John Hiat's This Is The Way We Make A Broken Heart left the audience momentarily stunned, afraid to clap lest they fracture the magic.

Although mainly based around the 12-bar blues format, the programme still had space for a couple of country ballads. There was even room for a whimsical yet deeply moving, Don't Wear Black, a song penned by Tam, as a personal tribute to the late Danny Kyle.

However, Shoestring is at its best when it injects a dose of rock into its set. The closing number, A Long Time Coming, was dark, granite-hard and tight as superglue on glass.

In rock mode it was difficult to tell who enjoyed themselves more; the audience or the band.

Tam White is more than a showman with a voice that sounds as though he gargles with razor blades. It is patently obvious he enjoys the music, and such is his enthusiasm, the audience has little choice but to enjoy it too.

At the close of the two-hour gig, the audience clamoured to buy the CD, The Real Deal, from which most of the gig's running order was lifted. Such was the demand that the organisers had to send out for another box.

Shoestring? May be - low budget, it certainly ain't.

Drew McAdam
Edinburgh Evening News
Monday 12 April 1999

In Edinburgh blues circles at least, Tam White is a legend. After winning his first talent contest at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens aged 11, he rose to fame with The Boston Dexters, became the first man to sing live on Top Of The Pops, gave it all up to become a drunk and a stonemason and finally made his comeback to appear alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

In the end, many would argue, he only missed the boat named 'superstardom' by a whisker of his walrus moustache.

For the rest of us, this is perhaps a good thing. After all, it is only rarely you get to see a musician of White's calibre play in the back of a smokey Edinburgh pub.

And it is a pleasure to do so. Supported by Neil Warden on guitar and Fraser Spiers on harmonica - aka Tam White's Shoestring Band - White's gravely blues numbers resonate with all the highs and lows of his long, strange career.

From Robert Burns and White's own Stonemason's Blues, to T Bone Walker's Stormy Monday and Elvis Presley, The Shoestring Band's set builds bridges between American Blues and Edinburgh's own distinct sounds.

Tam White has put on better, grander gigs, but propping up the bar, while some of Scotland's great blues musicians play away behind you, is more than worth the hangover.

Matt Warren
The Scotsman
August 23 2002