Armed with a clutch of new songs from his latest album, Tunesmith Retrofit, country-bluesman Kelly Joe Phelps was in mischievous mood last night.

"This seems like a nice room to play, with soft seats and all," he mused. "But any seats is better than none." He paused. "Anybody know the Jazz Café?" Prudently, his next words were off-mike.

Settling on to a hard wooden chair, this talented Delta-style troubadour from Portland, Oregon, fine-tuned a steel-string acoustic guitar amplified by a sound-hole pick-up, and went to work.

The mandatory traditional number (Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty) and roots blues (Tight to the Jaw) joined favourites from earlier albums (Cardboard Box of Batteries, The Anvil) in an engrossing hour of finger-style magic.

Using at least three capo positions and as many different tunings, KJ artfully varied keys and tempos for his light-toned yet husky vocals and insistent rhythmic backing. New songs such as Big Shakey involved such refinements as 3/4 time and diminished-seventh chords.

For blues purists, the best moments came on Handful of Arrows, where Phelps produced a long-neck banjo with four strings and half-neck drone. Its sound, rather like Taj Mahal's national-steel guitar in overdrive, was the essence of Americana. My old boss John Mayall would have given his Hollywood ranch-house to play like that.

• Tonight (0870 060 1742).