A TEENAGE guitarist from South Queensferry was yesterday coming down to earth after a guest stint on a Glasgow stage with US blues giant Joe Bonamassa.

Eilidh Mckellar, 18, impressed the audience with her guitar skills just as she has impressed Bonamassa, who describes her as "one of the brightest players I have encountered in a long time".

She performed two songs alongside Bonamassa and his band at the Royal Concert Hall and received rapturous applause as she walked off.

"Afterwards, people were asking me how it had gone with Joe, but to be honest I don't really remember much about it," said Eilidh, a student at Leeds College of Music.

"I do remember small clips of it but it was a real buzz and I keep on telling myself, I can't believe I did that, especially with somebody like Joe. He's an idol for me, not just as a guitar player but someone to look up to in terms of his amazing work ethic, and just as a good person."

Eilidh first met Bonamassa, whose girlfriend is Scots singer Sandi Thom, three years ago when she interviewed him as part of a Blues for Schools programme he was involved with in Edinburgh. She caught his attention by asking questions about guitar chords and scales.

Bonamassa told the Glasgow audience how his father had later urged him to watch an online video in which Eilidh was playing a version of one of his songs, Blues Deluxe.

Eilidh said: "I then got an email from Joe which I didn't believe was actually from him until I replied and found it really was."

Their association led to Eilidh playing a guest spot during Bonamassa's concert at the London Hammersmith Odeon last October.

Her Glasgow performance, however, was the first time they have played together in Scotland.

She said: "I wasn't as nervous in Glasgow as I was last October, but I was still nervous. But I'd got to know the band and they were really friendy and they put me at my ease."

Eilidh, who began playing guitar nine years ago, was last year accepted for a place on a degree course at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston and made a public appeal for a wealthy benefactor to bankroll the £84,000 school fees.

"The costs were just too high, and nothing came of it but, looking back, the outcome has been for the best – I have an opportunity I may not have received if I'd gone, and the standard of my education [at Leeds] is just as high, if not higher, as one guitarist out of 15 rather than one guitarist out of 1000 [at Berklee].

"I now have my own band, Eilidh Mckellar and the Gramercy. We're working on an EP and we're just about to release our first demo track.

"I'm giving singing a shot. It's something that doesn't come as naturally to me as playing the guitar. But I'm writing and singing and hopefully want to give it a shot as a solo artist."

Bonamassa, meanwhile, continues to take an interest in her career.

Eilidh said: "He describes our relationship as the kind of one he had with BB King, who took Joe under his wing when he was younger, and he wants to do the same for me.

"So if he's offering me advice, or the chance to jam, he's there for me."

Bonamassa told The Herald: "I feel she is destined to be a very successful musician.

"I can speak for my whole band when I say we are proud to call her our friend and honoured to have her on stage with us."

Concert review