Phillip Karl S.:  

a child’s passion for chewing gum would to M. Escoffier. In Cleanhead Phil Speat resides the real thing. He is an original article. He is one of the few people left that can shout the blues in Kansas City Style. Blessed like Big Joe Turner & Jimmy Rushing with an arsenal of vowel sounds and glottal shocks which you can nearly reach out and touch. Moreover Cleanhead Phil’s range is perfectly suited to the nature of his material, and that material is perfectly adequate to express the essence of his personality. Plainly speaking Cleanhead Phil Speat like the masters of the Kansas City Style of blues singing Big Joe Turner & Jimmy Rushing has found a way, no doubt by pure instinct, of doing what every creative artist ought to do but few ever manage, he has contrived an ideal marriage of the blues from and content. He is almost the last of a long and honorable that includes Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Witherspoon, Big Mama Thornton, Victoria Spivey, Jay McShann, Alberta Hunter & of course Bessie Smith. Like those who came before him Cleanhead Phil Speat represents a priceless tradition of Art, called the Kansas City Style Blues, which is all but extinct. This art is a dying art, and therefore doubly demands our scrutiny because Blues singing of this type has always been one of the glories of the Blues, we would be a parcel of fools not to revel in it for as long a we can. In these modern times where the true blues are almost a distant memory Cleanhead Phil Speat gives testament that those Rippin, Rompin, Riffin & Stompin days of Kansas City are in good hands and still alive! This man born in Compton, California has sang the blues in USA, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belgium, France, Poland, Germany, Serbia, Slovakia, Austria and Czech Republic since arriving to Europe in 1994. In June 2002 he released his first CD recording “Crackers In My Soup” on label Momma Jo Records. Most definitely a man that will be singing the blues for another 35 years. New CD is under works and will be released in near future.