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North musician Paul Booth to play at Superbowl with Stevie Winwood

Feb 7 2010 Sunday Sun

Sax player Paul Booth from Crook, County Durham

Click here to visit Paul's website where you can listen to him play

NORTH East musician Paul Booth happily admits he doesn’t know a quarterback from a wide receiver.

But the jazz saxophonist from Crook, County Durham, is playing a key role in tonight’s 44th American superbowl between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints in Miami’s New Dolphin Stadium.

Paul is part of the Stevie Winwood band which will be performing a pre-show set in front of a global TV audience of almost 100 million.

The American football game, which will be broadcast to more than 230 countries and watched by more than 90 million Americans, is one of the world’s most watched sporting events, only beaten for viewing figures by World Cup finals and the Olympic Games opening and closing ceremonies.

Paul, 32, said not all of the Stevie Winwood set would be broadcast live, but added: “At least one of our tracks will be broadcast live into the stadium during one of the game’s intervals. It will be seen by a huge amount of people, by far the biggest audience I will have played before and probably the biggest ever for Stevie too.”

Another British band, The Who, will perform at half time in one of the most sought after gigs worldwide.

Previous Superbowl performers have included Sir Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Prince.

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