The Washboard Resonators are a joke. Or rather, they were supposed to be—Leeds City Stompers musicians Martyn Roper and Jack Amblin plucked the alias out of thin air, when a booking agent asked the name of their two-man side project.
“To this day, we still don’t know if it’s a really good name or a really bad one,” said Martyn, from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. Good or bad, it’s an apt moniker for a duo armed with resonator guitars and gadget-packed washboards. That said, this two-man band packs more musical heat than most.
The tooled-up pair are on a mission to spread lesser-known jazz, blues, and happiness around the UK, putting a peculiarly British spin on some very American music. “We travel with more kit than most trios do,” said Martyn. “There are guitars, banjos, ukuleles, a drum kit, washboards, and Jack’s tap dancing board.”
The duo met five years ago at a jazz bar in Leeds, West Yorkshire while playing with different outfits—relative youngsters amongst the “silver-haired” regulars. Bonding over stories of bandmate woe, bassist Martyn and Welsh drummer Jack decided to team up. The result was the Leeds City Stompers—a three-man band featuring guest singers, whose fluid membership keeps classic jazz and blues kicking at around 40 functions and festivals a year.
But Martyn and Jack had their own special interests, plus an urge to writ
