'Born too late' is a predicate that the British blues singer and slide guitarist Ian Siegal often gets stamped on. After all, with his raw throat and energetic rhythm 'n' blues, he had definitely felt at home among British sixties bands like Them and The Animals. With his primary playing and vocals possessed by devil and booze, that makes him a loner in today's blues world, dominated by howling
… guitar solos. Just like his heroes Muddy Waters and Howlin 'Wolf, Siegal keeps his blues songs pointy and a solo serves the song and not the other way around. This is expressed better than ever on The Dust, on which he can mainly be heard alone with his acoustic guitar. Steaming, jerking and bumping, blues folk driven with many footsteps, this delivers, as if the ghosts of Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton had descended on him. What is special is that songs by Steve Earle (the song of praise to drugs CCKMP) and Mary Gauthier (the self-explanatory I Drink) effortlessly merge with more traditional work, such as the Howlin 'Wolf medley Dirt Road / Call Me The Wolf. (MR)more