Tucson bluesman Tom Walbank wasnβt supposed to start playing until 8 that first Thursday April night.
But by 7:15, 7:20, the small downtown Tap & Bottle was already filling up.
They moved out the tables and left the chairs, which were quickly accounted for. Latecomers squeezed nearly shoulder to shoulder in the open spaces or leaned against the taproomβs worn brick walls as Walbank took his guitar from its case and pulled out his trademark harmonica.
Drummer Dimitri Manos, Mighty Joel Ford on washboard, Sean Rogers on standup bass and keyboardist Ken Saydak were already jamming with Walbank when Gabriel Sullivan squeezed past a few guys crowding the taproomβs front door at 7:45.
βThis poster says 8,β Sullivan told Walbank as he started unpacking his electric guitar.
βYeah, man, we just couldnβt wait. Like, we just want to get to it,β Walbank responded over the music.
The quintetβs rocking blues and Walbankβs soaring harmonica spilled out of the nearly 100-year-old building that has been home to Tap & Bottle since 2013 and a regular stage for Walbank for a good stretch of the past decade.
But that Thursday night was the first of several lasts for Walbank.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank keeps playing for the standing-room-only crowd as the rest of the players get a break at Tap & Bottle on April 3. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C.
In a matter of weeks, the native of England, who has lived in Tucson 25 of his 55 years, is moving to Washington, D.C.
His wife, Leia Maahs, the former managing director of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, took a new job and is already in Washington. Walbank and their 14-year-old daughter will follow in early June.
βIβve lived in Tucson longer than I lived in England,β said Walbank, who in 1997 moved to the U.S. from Edinburgh, Scotland, where he had met and married his American wife.
The couple lived in her native California three years before moving to Tucson at the suggestion of a friend, who raved about the music scene.
Blues musician Tom Walbank, left, plays with another local artist, Gabriel Sullivan, during a performance at Tap & Bottle, 403 N. Sixth Ave., on April 3. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C., and the Tap & Bottle gig was one of his last shows in town.
βI moved here and fell in love with it,β Walbank recounted in a late March interview.
Walbank took the customary day job to pay the bills β laying tile, slinging coffee, working the graveyard shift at Hotel Congress β and spent his nights introducing Tucson to his blues, which dipped into the East Coast Piedmont style perfected by harmonica greats Charlie Musselwhite, Phil Wiggins and Sonny Terry, and Deep South Mississippi Delta blues.
He was a regular at Congress Streetβs Seven Black Cats open mic nights and landed a standing gig at the neighboring Red Room in the notorious greasy spoon The Grill.
Blues musician Tom Walbank, posing for a photo in his Tucson home on April 4, has created a graphic novel, βSummerbides, AZ.β
Walbankβs rough-hewn vocals conveyed a side of blues informed by passion and what Sullivan describes as an underlying punk rock ethos.
βThereβs certainly some fantastic blues musicians in town, but I just think in general, the blues scene is overrun by what I call ponytail blues. Itβs like dudes in Hawaiian shirts playing basic Stratocasters and ripping off every Chicago blues lick there is,β Sullivan said. βAnd then you get the real deal like Tom thatβs more punk than what I think the old point of blues was, an expression of necessity. ... When I hear Tom play, itβs like, thatβs real blues.β
The Red Room had a small stage crowded with a piano where Walbank would play. Some nights when he wasnβt playing, heβd end up there, like that night in late 2003 when Tucson native and boogie-woogie pianist Arthur Migliazza was playing.
He asked if he could jump in, and that impromptu collaboration became a lifelong friendship.
βWe became instant friends and we basically played together ever since,β including as a duo in the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee; they made it to the finals, said Migliazza, who left Tucson 15 years ago and now lives in Rhode Island.
Walbank played the Red Room on the regular for six years before he traded the grungy downtown hipster scene for a standing Sunday afternoon gig at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. For the past 15 years, he and drummer Manos have been the entertainment for the resortβs weekly Blues, Brews & BBQ Brunch. He also picks up gigs like his early April show at Tap & Bottle and is a regular collaborator with a handful of Tucson musicians.
Tucsonβs British-born blues player Tom Walbank plays amongst his drawings of blues musicians in his home in 2007. He says he discovered the blues when he was 15 years old from a movie.
βThereβs almost no record that I produce that I donβt call him on,β said Sullivan, who has his hands in a number of musical pots from his cumbia rock band XIXA to solo shows and touring with English post-punk rockers Modern English.
Sullivan said one of Walbankβs biggest contributions to Tucsonβs music scene in recent years has been organizing musicians around a single cause, from helping foreign musicians get visas to come to Tucson during President Trumpβs first administration, to coordinating and producing benefit recordings including βHotmatic Bluesβ to raise money for musicians sidelined by the pandemic; βLow Blows for Ida,β to benefit victims of 2021βs Hurricane Ida in Louisiana; and his most recent effort, βHarp Love for LA,β released last month to benefit victims of Januaryβs devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
βItβs going to be a huge loss to the music scene here,β Sullivan said.
βHeβs one of the best harmonica players, easily, in the world,β added Migliazza, who hopes to reunite with Walbank on stage once heβs settled in Washington. βTucson was, I think, really fortunate to have him there for so long.β
Local blues musician Tom Walbank goes all out on harmonica as he plays with several other area musicians for a send off show at Tap & Bottle.
Walbank said heβs going to take some time to adjust to life in Washington before he dives into the music scene, but heβs confident once he does, heβll find his place there much like he found his place in Tucson.
βIβll take some time to adjust and then Iβll start playing,β said the Arizona Blues Hall of Famer.
And even though heβll be 2,000 miles from Tucson, the Old Pueblo will never be far from his thoughts.
βIf I start talking, Iβll sound like a tourist advert for the place, but you know yourself, you live here,β he said. βItβs like you can go up Mount Lemmon, you can go up to Gates Pass. You can go south and you can park at a canyon, go down to the lake down there, or something. You know, thereβs so much variety here.β
βIβve been in Tucson ... most of my adult life,β he added. βItβll always be home.β
Walbank has only a few Tucson shows before he leaves, including the Arizona Blues Hall of Fame induction show April 26 at Monterey Court, 505 W. Miracle Mile; and his finale May 17 at Wooden Tooth Records, 426 E. Seventh St.
You can also find him at the Loews Ventana Canyon Blues, Brews & BBQ, 7000 N. Resort Drive, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays through May 25.
Photos: Blues musician Tom Walbank farewell gig at Tap and Bottle
Blues musician Tom Walbank, left, plays with another local artist, Gabriel Sullivan, during a performance at Tap & Bottle, 403 N. Sixth Ave., on April 3. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C., and the Tap & Bottle gig was one of his last shows in town.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank goes all out on harmonica as he plays with several other area musicians for a send off show at Tap & Bottle.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank keeps playing for the standing-room-only crowd as the rest of the players get a break at Tap & Bottle on April 3. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank performs at the Tap and Bottle, 403 N. 6th Ave., April 3, 2025, Tucson, Ariz., 2025. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank works his guitar during a number at the Tap and Bottle, 403 N. 6th Ave., April 3, 2025, Tucson, Ariz., 2025. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C.
Local blues musician Tom Walbank has a laugh with the others backing his numbers during a show at the Tap and Bottle, 403 N. 6th Ave., April 3, 2025, Tucson, Ariz., 2025. After decades of having Tucson as his home, Walbank is moving to Washington, D.C.
