There was birthday cake and a cast of supporting singers representing the various generations involved in Edinburgh Folk Club's 40-year history.

Some people had travelled from as far as Grimsby and Bath for the occasion, and the star of the show had somehow got himself back from Denmark, via a mirthful tale-inducing Glasgow gig, to revisit the club he had helped to launch as its opening night guest on October 10, 1973.

Mike Whellans gives every impression he might be able to power himself across the North Sea by means of the energy he puts into being the heir to the great one-man blues bands he revered in his youth, Joe Hill Louis and Tony 'Duster' Bennett.

He was joined for quite a bit of his two sets by his old pal and fellow Borders-dweller Brian Miller, playing some neat and nimble mandolin. But by himself, as he approaches a significant birthday of his own - his 70th - Whellans seems to be becoming even more of a master of his art.

Jumpin' In The Neighbourhood got a party started that somehow managed to musically refer to Champion Jack Dupree and Mamma Italiana in Lauder, with Whellans' churning guitar, wholehearted singing and pulse providing kick drum and hi hat setting the pace for the first of innumerable harmonica breaks.

This smallest of instruments is Whellans' forte. The variety of tones and phrasing he produces is spectacular and when he combined mouth organ and mouth percussion - creating drum and cymbal sounds with an intervallic accuracy and tonal realism way beyond anything beat-boxers achieve - he was in a class entirely of his own.