Album
Ian Siegal & Jimbo Mathus
Wayward Sons
Nugene (label)
04 March 2016 (released)
21 February 2016
Ian Siegal is a remarkable musician and over the years he has appeared in solo, duo, three piece and full band formats. For my money, his collaborations recently with the North Mississippi musicians such as Cody & Luther Dickinson, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Robert Kimbrough are some of the most enjoyable and intense Blues I have heard for years. He was also introduced to Jimbo Mathus as part of that scene and this live album was recorded in the Netherlands in November 2014 featuring the two of them.
The tone of the album is remarkably relaxed. These are two guys who are completely comfortable playing together and who enjoy testing each other and giving and taking space.
Their voices work together beautifully and whoever is on lead the backup works to bring the songs out to their best. Jimbo’s mandolin and harmonica playing is fine and he also adds kazoo and guitar alongside Ian’s acoustic and slide lead – as a duo they just work.
A lot of the music of old Blues is religious in origin and this set is scattered with songs that could be described as gospel – ‘In The Garden’, ‘Heavenly Houseboat Blues’, ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’ – but there are a load of other classics in ‘Jesse James’, ‘Casey Jones’ and a superb ‘Stack O Lee’.
The introductions to the various songs actually get credited on the album and deservedly so – informative AND funny! The intro to ‘Talkin’ Overseas Pirate Blues’ is probably longer than the song.
This album is completely true to the spirit of the music that these guys obviously love but there is no po-faced reverence here. Just listening to Mathus kazoo on ‘Stack O Lee’ would make that clear but they also don’t take the mickey out of the songs.
There are a number of originals and all are fine but no other track here comes close to their version of ‘Goodnight Irene’.
I am an unashamed fan of Ian Siegal and of the North Mississippi scene and this puts the two together on a night of real magic.
The tone of the album is remarkably relaxed. These are two guys who are completely comfortable playing together and who enjoy testing each other and giving and taking space.
Their voices work together beautifully and whoever is on lead the backup works to bring the songs out to their best. Jimbo’s mandolin and harmonica playing is fine and he also adds kazoo and guitar alongside Ian’s acoustic and slide lead – as a duo they just work.
A lot of the music of old Blues is religious in origin and this set is scattered with songs that could be described as gospel – ‘In The Garden’, ‘Heavenly Houseboat Blues’, ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’ – but there are a load of other classics in ‘Jesse James’, ‘Casey Jones’ and a superb ‘Stack O Lee’.
The introductions to the various songs actually get credited on the album and deservedly so – informative AND funny! The intro to ‘Talkin’ Overseas Pirate Blues’ is probably longer than the song.
This album is completely true to the spirit of the music that these guys obviously love but there is no po-faced reverence here. Just listening to Mathus kazoo on ‘Stack O Lee’ would make that clear but they also don’t take the mickey out of the songs.
There are a number of originals and all are fine but no other track here comes close to their version of ‘Goodnight Irene’.
I am an unashamed fan of Ian Siegal and of the North Mississippi scene and this puts the two together on a night of real magic.
