Why this album? And not an old blues hero, like ‘John Lee Hooker’ or ‘Muddy Waters’?
This album is for me the best blues album of today! It is a solo album and also an acoustic album. Two things I stand for myself and as icing on the cake also live….
The perfection of not being perfect at all is perfection to me!
His ‘National’ guitar sounds so pure and direct, his voice is not yet lubricated… Ian puts on something very special this afternoon. He is on top form, his playing is pure raw and full of passion. The setlist this afternoon is fantastic, from old blues classics to Gospel, supplemented with his own work. He chats it all up with great stories and anecdotes. The album was recorded by the BBC, live at the Royal Albert Hall on Oct. 31, 2013. “THE concert you should have been at!” Thank goodness this live album was made of it. I’m sure there are now more people who claim to have attended this concert than were actually there…that’s how it works: “Oh yes I was there that night, it was unprecedentedly good!” The album begins with the song “The Silver Spurs,” right in with an uptempo blues. You can hear him sigh and support not yet played hot at all. He sets it the way you want to hear it and then his voice comes, this one breaks and it’s perfect. So the songs follow each other and after the 3rd song you are there, that afternoon in October. So the songs follow each other and after the 3rd song you are there, that afternoon in October. Sweat is running through your living room speakers and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes from the night before permeate your nostrils like incense. With the announcement of the last song, an 1850’s Traditional “Hard Times” by Stephen Foster (a great songwriter from the 1800’s), the album is over… All that remains is, “If only I had been there on that afternoon in October 2013 in London!”
Happy listening!