South London blues troublemakers Jimmy Regal And The Royals are back — and they’re bringing a whole world of rhythm with them.
The London-based trio have announced their new studio album, Snap Back, a record that promises to drag the blues through North Mississippi, New Orleans, Senegal, Mali and the streets of South London before sending it home covered in sweat, harmonica and one hell of a groove.
The physical edition of Snap Back arrives on Friday 25th September 2026, followed by the full digital release across streaming platforms on Friday 2nd October 2026.
And this isn’t some dusty museum-piece version of the blues either, butt. 🤘
Jimmy Regal And The Royals have built their reputation by respecting the foundations of blues while refusing to be trapped by them. Harmonica, guitar and drums might form the core of the operation, but what comes out the other side is considerably bigger, stranger and more adventurous.
Their new record continues that mission.
🔥 Blues Without Borders
Jimmy Regal And The Royals are:
Joff Watkins — harmonica, vocals and guitar
CJ Williams — guitar and backing vocals
Sammy Samuels — drums, percussion and backing vocals
Together, they create a sound influenced by everything from North Mississippi hill country blues and New Orleans rhythm and blues to West African music.
Think Junior Kimbrough, Cedric Burnside, Ali Farka Touré, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, North Mississippi Allstars and GA-20, throw the whole thing into a South London blender and crank the volume.
Now we’re talking. 😈
The trio’s unusual instrumental approach also helps give them their enormous sound.
CJ Williams blends bass, rhythm and lead guitar duties through a two-amp setup, signal splitting and octave effects, while Joff Watkins brings harmonica into the frontline rather than treating it as an occasional decoration.
Behind them, Sammy Samuels supplies a layered rhythmic foundation informed by years of touring internationally.
Add horns, percussion, guest musicians and collaborations into the equation and you’ve got a three-piece capable of sounding considerably larger than three blokes should legally be allowed to sound.
🌍 From South London To Senegal
That global influence isn’t something Jimmy Regal And The Royals have simply borrowed from a record collection.
The band have actively collaborated with musicians from West Africa, including Senegalese kora player Diabel Cissokho, while exploring the musical connections between African rhythms, American blues and contemporary British roots music.
In 2026, the band travelled to Dakar, Senegal, to perform at Kafou Music Festival as guests of Cissokho.
Those experiences feed directly into Snap Back.
The band’s philosophy behind the album is one of musical movement — rhythms travelling between Africa, America, Britain and beyond, evolving every time they reach somewhere new.
It’s blues with its passport stamped to hell and back. 🌍🎸
📈 A Band With Serious Momentum
Jimmy Regal And The Royals aren’t exactly arriving at Snap Back without a few achievements already stuffed into the flight case.
Their debut album reached the UK charts in 2017, beginning a run that has seen the group achieve four Top 10 UK blues albums.
Their previous studio record, First and Last Stop, reached No.1 in the UK charts, while the band were reportedly the most-played UK act on the International Roots Music Report charts for three consecutive weeks.
The record also broke into the US Contemporary Blues Top 10.
On top of that, Jimmy Regal And The Royals have received UK Blues Federation nominations for Best Album and Best Band, while their reputation as a ferocious live outfit has taken them across the UK festival circuit.
They’ve also supported American blues heavyweights including Cedric Burnside and GA-20.
So yeah… these lads aren’t mucking about.
🎶 ‘Snap Back’ — Track By Track
The new album consists entirely of original material, with the band exploring everything from resilience and creativity to dodgy cars, pub fights, South London characters and the strange rhythms connecting musical cultures across continents.
Here’s what awaits.
🥁 Don’t Know Diddly
The album campaign kicked off with ‘Don’t Know Diddly’, released on 17th July 2026.
At its heart is the legendary Bo Diddley beat, itself closely connected to African rhythmic traditions and the clave patterns that have travelled through generations of music.
The initial guitar idea came after listening to Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘300 Pounds of Joy’, with Jimmy Regal And The Royals taking those overlapping rhythmic ideas and building something designed for maximum groove.
The lyrics came from encounters with people who didn’t know who Bo Diddley was — turning the track into both a celebration and a cheeky musical history lesson.
Better still, it’s become a call-and-response number live.
Congas, trumpet, tenor sax and bass sax pile onto the arrangement.
Big groove. Big horns. Big mission.
Bo would probably approve. 🤘
🚌 Shining Through On The 122
Forget Route 66.
This is South London, mun.
Inspired by New Orleans rhythm and blues legend Huey ‘Piano’ Smith, ‘Shining Through On The 122’ takes the tradition of musicians celebrating their hometown and transports it directly onto a London bus.
The song celebrates the places the band know, the people they meet and Perry Vale Studios, where First and Last Stop was recorded.
It also pays tribute to the late producer Pat Collier.
And in one of those gloriously ridiculous musical coincidences, a song celebrating the 122 bus ended up running at 122 BPM.
You couldn’t plan it better. 😂
💥 Snap Back
The title track began life as a variation on Junior Kimbrough’s ‘All Night Long’, which the band previously recorded for Late Night Chicken.
From there, however, it evolved into its own beast.
‘Snap Back’ is about resilience — getting knocked down, getting back up and having another crack at whatever life has just lobbed at your head.
It’s blues as survival music.
🌵 Disconnect
Here comes that “urban desert blues”.
‘Disconnect’ is one of two songs directly shaped by the band’s collaborations with Diabel Cissokho and their exploration of West African music.
The track features Seydou, originally from Burkina Faso and now based in London, on djembe alongside Polish-born London musician Kamila Bydlowska on violin.
Artists including Vieux Farka Touré, Mdou Moctar and Boubacar Traoré sit among the inspirations.
Hypnotic riffs meet the feeling of vast musical landscapes — except this particular desert has been dragged straight into the city.
Lyrically, the track deals with memory, forgetfulness and trying to hold onto the thread connecting everything together.
📻 I Wanna Be On Your Radio Show
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.
Inspired by a jingle Johnny Sansone created for legendary New Orleans radio station WWOZ, this originally began as Jimmy Regal And The Royals’ own promotional jingle for their live album Well Boss.
Then somebody clearly thought:
“Hang on… there’s a proper song hiding in this thing.”
And they were right.
The jingle expanded into a full track and earned itself a place on Snap Back.
✍️ Don’t Try
This one takes inspiration from poet and novelist Charles Bukowski and his famous philosophy of “Don’t try.”
Rather than meaning don’t bother, the idea relates to creativity arriving naturally — that when something genuinely needs to come out, forcing it becomes unnecessary.
Jimmy Regal And The Royals take that philosophy and build one of the album’s more expansive arrangements around it.
Layered percussion and guitars gradually increase the drama, allowing the song room to breathe and grow.
🔥 Hold On Tight
Now we’re getting ambitious.
Seydou returns on djembe, while Edd Bateman contributes bass.
Bateman brings extensive experience performing alongside Senegalese and Malian musicians and regularly tours with Nigerien guitarist Bombino.
Then the horns arrive.
Rather than keeping things compact, Jimmy Regal And The Royals stretch ‘Hold On Tight’ into a longer-form composition influenced by the mighty Fela Kuti.
Sections arrive, rhythms build, instrumentation piles up and everything heads towards a massive crescendo.
This could be an absolute monster live.
🌍 Until I Die
‘Until I Die’ came from one of those wonderfully simple songwriting moments — sitting around with a guitar and seeing what appears.
According to Joff Watkins, the main riff emerged backstage before a gig.
Musically, the track once again bridges worlds, bringing together the influence of Diabel Cissokho with Junior Kimbrough.
West Africa meets North Mississippi.
That’s pretty much the Jimmy Regal And The Royals mission statement right there.
🚗 Flat Battery Blues
Every blues album needs misery.
Thankfully, sometimes misery arrives with an alternator warning light.
😂
‘Flat Battery Blues’ is based on Joff’s real-life experiences owning yet another cheap and spectacularly unreliable car.
And really, what could be more blues than standing beside a vehicle that has decided it’s absolutely not taking you home?
Musically influenced by funk and Cedric Burnside, the track became the album’s second single, released on 14th August 2026.
It’s heartbreak for anyone who’s ever turned the ignition and heard:
click… click… absolutely bugger all.
🎰 What Mickey Did Next
South London characters take centre stage here.
Inspired by Joff’s years working in a South London bookmakers, the song revisits Mickey Two Suits, a character previously introduced on First and Last Stop.
Mickey is lovable.
Mickey is shady.
And Mickey apparently possesses an almost supernatural ability to make terrible decisions.
Naturally, he deserves another song.
🎵 Well Boss
No messing around here.
‘Well Boss’ is a full-throttle harmonica instrumental recorded live with no overdubs.
Inspired by harmonica giants including Walter Horton and Rod Piazza, it’s essentially the band removing the safety barriers and letting Joff Watkins loose.
Hold onto your pint. 🍺
🎤 Meet Jimmy Regal And The Royals
Joff Watkins — Harmonica, Vocals & Guitar
Joff has established himself as one of the UK’s highly regarded harmonica players, with session work including performances alongside Rhoda Dakar and Shola Ama, as well as numerous BBC Radio live sessions.
His arsenal includes Marine Band harmonicas, Gretsch guitars, Fender Bassman and Harp Train amplification alongside an assortment of effects.
CJ Williams — Guitar & Backing Vocals
CJ’s approach essentially asks the question:
Why have separate bass, rhythm and lead guitarists when you can cause enough noise yourself?
Using signal splitting, octave effects and a dual-amplifier setup, Williams combines several traditional instrumental roles into one enormous guitar sound.
His collection includes Gibson, Silvertone and Martin guitars alongside Tone King and Quilter amplification.
Sammy Samuels — Drums, Percussion & Backing Vocals
Having toured extensively across Australia, Canada and the United States before settling in Britain, Sammy brings a broad musical background to the rhythm section.
His Gretsch kit and djembe provide the foundation beneath the band’s genre-hopping approach, creating grooves capable of moving between blues, funk, African rhythms and good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll swagger.
🤘 The Riff Report Verdict
Snap Back sounds like exactly the sort of blues record we love seeing arrive in 2026.
It knows where the music came from without pretending nothing has happened since 1955.
Jimmy Regal And The Royals are taking those roots, following their journey across continents and generations, and then asking:
Where can we take this next?
That’s how roots music stays alive.
From Bo Diddley rhythms and North Mississippi grooves to West African percussion, South London buses, bookmakers, Bukowski and cars that won’t bloody start, Snap Back looks set to be an album packed with characters, stories and serious rhythmic muscle.
Most importantly, it sounds like a band genuinely curious about music.
Not interested in putting blues behind museum glass.
Not interested in simply recreating somebody else’s records.
They’re taking the history, learning from it, collaborating with musicians from different traditions and throwing everything into something unmistakably their own.
Jimmy Regal And The Royals are snapping back — and they’re bringing one massive groove with them. 🎸🔥
💿 Jimmy Regal And The Royals – Snap Back
Physical Release: Friday 25th September 2026
Digital Release: Friday 2nd October 2026
Tracklist
- Don’t Know Diddly
- Shining Through On The 122
- Snap Back
- Disconnect
- I Wanna Be On Your Radio Show
- Don’t Try
- Hold On Tight
- Until I Die
- Flat Battery Blues
- What Mickey Did Next
- Well Boss
For fans of: Junior Kimbrough, Cedric Burnside, Ali Farka Touré, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, North Mississippi Allstars and GA-20.
🔗 Follow Jimmy Regal And The Royals
Official Website: jimmyregalandtheroyals.com
Bandcamp: Jimmy Regal And The Royals
Instagram: @jimmyregalandtheroyals
Facebook: Jimmy Regal And The Royals
YouTube: Jimmy Regal And The Royals
Spotify: Jimmy Regal And The Royals
🔥 Keep supporting independent music, keep discovering bands doing something different and, most importantly, keep those riffs — and those blues grooves — LOUD!
Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. 🤘🏴
