Our feature this week on Beale Street Caravan is Ian Siegal, British bluesman and frequent fixture of the North Mississippi Hill Country scene (in fact, that’s where we ran in to him – at the N Miss Hill Country Picnic). Ian is one of the brightest stars in the roots music world and this week’s gritty, hypnotic performance doesn’t disappoint. Also this week we are joined by The Dead Soldiers, a dynamic Memphis group with a dense sound layered with old time harmonies, bombastic arrangements, and great, lyrical storytelling. BSC contributor Adam Hill stops by to continue his series, Made In Memphis.
About the artist:
It has been said that had Ian Siegal been around in the sixties he would today be accorded the same reverence as artists such as Van Morrison and Joe Cocker. Instead, he is a child of the seventies who dropped out of art college in the late eighties to go busking in Germany. From the streets of Berlin Siegal progressed to clubs around Nottingham in the UK, then to London and ultimately to major stages around Europe.
Siegal’s forte is playing to an audience. He takes command of the stage in a way very few artists alive today can match. Sweat, passion, humour, balls-to-the-wind slide guitar and a soul-infused voice big enough to fell trees! It has won him an ever-growing following of fans and a horde of female admirers.
His career got under way in 2003/04 with two successive European tours as the opening act for ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings (Wyman also invited Ian to record with the Rhythm Kings). This was followed by UK tours as a duo with Big Bill Morganfield (son of Muddy Waters). During this time Siegal was also capturing the hearts of audiences in Holland, Belgium, Austria and Hungary. In 2005 he topped the Soul/Blues/Jazz charts in Holland.
His 2005 album Meat &Potatoes has been universally praised and gained a maximum four star (excellent) rating in the Penguin Book of Blues Recordings – Ian is one of only two living British Blues artists to gain this distinction. Meat & Potatoes was later re-released as a limited edition together with a DVD of his stunning performance on the main stage at the North Sea Jazz Festival.
That was followed by Swagger, his 2007 release, which again received universal praise, “No less of a testament to the talents of one of the most innovative, gifted and engaging blues performers on the planet today.” MOJO magazine ranked Swagger as their no.2 Blues album of 2007.
Siegal is equally accomplished solo as he is fronting his band. In response to fans requests for an acoustic album The Dust was released at the end of 2008. A collection of new songs and some old favourites (with noted pedal steel guitarist B.J.Cole appearing on a few tracks), the CD quickly entered HMV’s roots chart, and again made No.2 in MOJO magazine’s Blues album chart – this time for 2008.
Siegal is equally accomplished solo as he is fronting his band. In response to fans requests for an acoustic album The Dust was released at the end of 2008. A collection of new songs and some old favourites (with noted pedal steel guitarist B.J.Cole appearing on a few tracks), the CD quickly entered HMV’s roots chart, and again made No.2 in MOJO magazine’s Blues album chart – this time for 2008.
His Oct 09 release Broadside finally gave Ian the top spot in MOJO’s annual Blues album chart.
Siegal’s May ‘11 release The Skinny is an album recorded in north Mississippi with Grammy nominee Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars as producer. A band was assembled from musicians in the area including Gary Burnside, Robert Kimbrough and Rodd Bland, all offspring of notable bluesmen.
Ian returned to north Mississippi in May 2012 to collaborate with another dream-team of local legends that he collectively coined The Mississippi Mudbloods. Joining Ian and Cody Dickinson were Cody’s bother Luther Dickinson, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. Ian first met Alvin during The Skinny sessions, when the Grammy-winning guitarist swung by the studio and ended up tracking some guitar and backing vocals.
The end result of this second visit to the Zebra Ranch Studio is Candy Store Kid, which released October 2012 and quickly reached no.1 in the iTunes UK blues chart and garnered a swathe of awards in the UK and nominations in the USA.
Ian has become established in Europe as one of the most natural, exciting and vibrant talents on the scene today. Each year the stages get bigger, but what sticks most in Ian’s mind is his guest appearance with then 92-year old Pinetop Perkins and some of the other remaining members of Muddy Waters’ band. This was at London’s Jazz Café in 2005 to a packed house. Then later at a festival in Norway, in a role reversal, these legends of post-war Blues spontaneously joined Ian on stage for what turned into a memorable hour-long set.
In a twist to his career, Ian performed for several years with France’s Orchestre National de Jazz in a program of Billie Holiday songs entitled “Broadway in Satin.” Backed by a 12-piece orchestra of young hand-picked musicians and accompanied by the French singer, Karen Lanaud, Broadway in Satin has performed at major festivals across France and as far afield as South America and east Africa.
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Memphis is both the cradle and grave of American music, home of the dance and the dirge. Sometimes it sounds like bluegrass, sometimes like honky tonk, sometimes rock, and sometimes soul, but it never sounds grander than when Dead Soldiers are in the trenches, and the troops are plied with whiskey.
