Devizes is often spoiled for choice when it comes to live music. Swindon folk ensemble SGO at the Gate would’ve been an excellent decision for this Saturday night, and I considered dropping by at some point during the proceedings at Long Street Blues Club prior to the proceedings at Long Street Blues Club, but during the proceedings at Long Street Blues Club I concluded I’d have to be criminally insane to leave now…..
I might be insane, but not criminally, yet! To a packed house, award-winning, and not one to shy away from jesting about it, UK blues legend Ian Siegal came, saw, and revisited his two debut albums as requested by Long Street Blues Club organiser and Devizes mayor Ian Hopkins, enthralling the crowd; including me.
Ian Siegal is a national treasure, his 2009 album Broadside made MOJO magazine’s blues album of the year, but the theme tonight focussed on his debut album from four years previous, Meat & Potatoes, which received four stars in the Penguin Book of Blues Recordings and paved the way for Ian’s sound, and its follow on, 2007’s Swagger. With the original organist from Meat & Potatoes, Jonny Henderson, and drummer Tom Gilkes, he drove sublime Detroit, Chicago and Memphis blues fusions, authentic and raw, to the forefront of a deservedly ostentatious show. That’s how you play it.
I’m not up on these albums, detected a chorus mentioning Swagger, but for the most part, I was simply soaking up the sublime moment joyfully and without overanalysing; too easy to go with the flow of Ian’s sound. There were nods to his influences in splices of covers, flamboyant banter, and skilled compositions. It was, in summary, divine blues. Devizes own, Jon Amor joined him for a couple, and Ian spun blues riffs like they were childsplay.
None of this before the support act, young Ruby Darbyshire, who for the first and last time she played here I called it to be the best support I’ve seen at the club; it’s a double-whammy line-up tonight. Multi-intrumnetalist, Ruby was blowing her bagpipes for Remembrance in the Brittox earlier. Arriving a tad late due to a bus delay, I noted she was already underway, unusually behind a keyboard. Explaining she hadn’t played piano live before, she made a grand job of it, and returned to her guitar where we know and love her best.
A few originals including her timeless Insomnia, and covers from Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone to Rag & Bone Man’s Human, she puts her wonderful stamp on them all, rapturously expressive and soulful. To hear Ruby is a magic I’ll never tire of, she’s improved her confidence, which is tricky in this appreciation society, where there’s the silence of a library while performers do their thing. It may be respectful, but a smidgen daunting for anyone on the stage used to more clamorous venues. But hey, anyone who can make Queen’s Is This The World We Created their own fully deserves the upstanding applause she received, from a matured audience who have witnessed many talented people come and go.
Blues stalwarts at the club may have been in the know much longer than me, but Devizine was a learning curve, and when I began it I had no clue how deep the rabbit hole went, this, what I dub “Mel Bush effect,” the town’s association with UK blues. When blues supergroup lockdown project Birdmen became a live show at Long Street a couple of years ago, Dave Doherty invited me and it was my epiphany into how the club was continuing Devizes folk’s affection for the blues. This fantastic eye-opening gig was so due to the stellar lineup, in particular frontman Ian Siegal.
In its review I summarised him as “the very definition of cool,” but knew I’d have to expand on that next time, which was when he was a guest at the Jon Amor Trio monthly residency at the Southgate in March. So, the extended version was as “cool on a barefoot Bruce Willis pounding through the glass of the Nakatomi Plaza level, he is the Steve McQueen leaping anti-tank obstacles on a stolen Triumph of UK blues!”
As a quote I was kinda chuffed with, I thought I’d attempt to recite it when I met him after the gig, but intoxication levels took control, and accepting I’d probably stumble out the word Nakatomi, I only mumbled I compared him to Bruce Willis. He didn’t seem impressed, assuming I was referring to the dire commercial album Willis launched in the eighties, trashing soul classics like Under the Boardwalk! Apologies to the man, for I’d archived that album to the back of my mind and wasn’t referring to it at all!
I hope he reads this so I can correct the tit I made of myself! Because last night’s gig was sublime; I never had any doubts, and my concept Ian Siegal is cool, however I express it, sticks! Plus, of course, there will be plenty of other opportunities to make a tit out of myself, I’m sure!
As for Ian, he seems to be on a permanent tour, find dates on his website, and news of an new album, Stone by Stone, due in April, HERE.
For Long Street, John Otway & The Big Band arrives next Saturday, 16th November, promising to be something different, and with Billy in the Lowground in support. Then, Thomas Atlas Band plays with Two Smiles, A Bang, and a Legend in support, for a Christmas Party on Saturday 21st December.
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