Born in Merseyside, Alan is 24 years old and began playing the guitar at the age of 8 years. Alan's grandfather, a jazz guitarist from Barbados gave him his first guitar & within a year, after devouring the entire Beatles back catalogue, Alan began to explore blues, often practising until his fingers bled on that old acoustic guitar, with high action and rusted strings. Alan found himself living in Nottingham for a few crazy years and honed his sound in blues-rock band, "Bad Luck and Trouble", going on to found "The Alan Crawford Band", gigging around the Midlands and supporting 'Walter Trout & The Radicals'. After moving back to Merseyside in 2008, he met Briggy who opened his eyes to contemporary 'punk blues' bands like the White Stripes and at the same time renewed his love of the Delta. Alan is attracted to the rawness, simplicity and truth of blues and his ambition is to create a style of music that finds its roots in blues yet is fresh and accessible to new audiences. His main influences are Muddy Waters, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The White Stripes and The Black Keys.

Papa Legba play raw, emotional music, rooted in their Blues influences; From Son House, Blind Willie McTell and John Lee Hooker, through to Cream, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan and, more recently, The Black Keys, The White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age and Wolfmother. This latest wave of contemporary blues, with its stripped down, lo-fi sound, has inspired the band and influenced their writing.
The band have fused their influences to create a sound that is authentic, but relevant: raw, gritty, hard-edged and contemporary blues rock. Papa Legba are a statement against the safe and over-polished clichés that often dominate the blues market, and contemporary popular music in general.
Alan unleashes passion and anger through his emotive, aggressive style of guitar playing. Briggy on Drums compliments Alan's playing with his relentless drive, raw energy and busy, tom-heavy style. Scott, on bass, is the glue that holds the chaos together, he provides a depth that makes it hard to believe there are just three musicians on stage! Together, Papa Legba create a powerful live show - the level of musicianship, improvisation and interplay between the members gives each song a dynamic personality of its own, meaning no two performances are ever the same!
Have a listen to the demo tracks on this site for a taster of the band's sound, jamming some covers that often feature in their live set. However, this recording doesn't do justice to the band's live sound. The band have already written about ten original tracks and hope to have recorded some of those and put them on myspace by the end of the year.
Scott Crawford born in Liverpool, raised in Warrington. English teacher, drummer and linesman insulter. Briggy describes his influences as Buddy, Moon, Bonzo and Baker and his inspirations as Bob Paisley, Bishop's Finger, Kylie Minoque's bottom, B20 alloy, Robert Zimmerman and Mississippi John Hurt. Briggy's relentless energy, and love of his toms, drive the band and led to the apt description of its sound, "like Cream on speed"! Graham shares Alan's ambition of creating blues that is authentic yet relevant.
Scott is 21, and is Alan's younger brother. He originally learned to play the piano at the Queen Victoria School of Music, and is a qualified piano tutor. Alan began teaching him to play guitar and bass at a young age of 8, but it was only when he went to college at 16 that he migrated from the piano to the bass. After fronting numerous bands, most notably the successful Pink Floyd tribute band "In the Flesh", he became disillusioned with the polished approach of being in a tribute band and wanted something a little rawer, something to get his teeth into. When the vacancy came up, Scott decided to follow in his brother's footsteps in to the blues. Scott takes his blues influences from Cream, Clapton, Gary Moore, Jeff Healey and Free. Scott hopes that his bond with Alan will produce a fantastic on stage presence and musical connection. He states his bass influences as Guy Pratt (Pink Floyd), Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), Andy Fraser (free) and Jack Bruce (Cream).