If you had asked me the same time last year what I thought of country music, I would have answered diplomatically with something along the lines of "I don't like it, but that doesn't make it bad music." And that's true. I was also uneasy with the fact that much as I admired his technique, I could never enjoy Sonny Terry's music (and for a harmonica player, that's an awkward position, believe me...) And that's not even country, just country blues.
And then last year, having heard some snippets of it in a friend's car, I purchased Jonny Cash's The Man Comes Around. And I was blown away by the depth of it. It was undeniably country, and it was at the same time not at all the sound I had always associated with it. If I had not done that, I might not have wanted to listen to Ian Siegal's The Dust. I probably would have kept on enjoying his blues records and disregarded this "country" release. As I heard Ian himself say at a gig:
"Some people hate country music and won't listen to me playing it. Fuck 'em."
Maybe I didn't want to be one of those.
Anyway, I got Ian's latest CD when I saw him with Greg Szlapczynski in April, and I've been listening to it on a regular basis ever since. It's a country music album. And it's good. To be fair, it blurs the distinction between acoustic blues and country; but with the exception of Good Home and the live bonus tracks at the end which much more blues than country it offers the patterns, themes and feel of country music.
Ian's fame is mostly associated with his voice, a deep, gravelly black voice that navigates between Howling Wolf in the deep end and Tom Waits on the melodic side. There's no doubt that these are some of Ian's influences, but he's managed to kill the fathers (except when he's doing pastiche as on Dirt Road / Call me the Wolf).
Much as I love his voice though, I also think Ian is an exceptional guitar player and songwriter. Ian himself usually downplays his own guitar abilities: on a blues scene where being a good guitar player is more like emulating Eric Clapton than Lightnin' Hopkins, I understand where he's coming from. But strangely enough, there's a lot more people who can play like Clapton than Hopkins. He's one of the latter. He's got this great sense for sparse picking accompaniment, and that's what I love in his guitar playing. A song like I Drink ironically showcases this talent for picked sobriety.
Maybe the most important aspect of The Dust though is Ian's emergence as a major songwriter in the blues and country genres. This trend was already apparent to a certain degree in The Swagger but it's absolutely at the center of The Dust. A song like Between the Stirrup and the Ground for example, is deep, poetic and evocative.
Dust and the sand rised to block out the sun
In the distance a rider is ridin'
His face has the look of a man who's on the run
Or maybe it's just something he's hidin'
It's the same kind of true to life stories that I found in that Johnny Cash album I mentioned earlier. I wrote on this blog that the one thing that - in my mind - distinguished Ian Siegal from countless other modern blues artists was the fact that he didn't just perform the blues, he lived it. I don't know if 'living the country' means anything, but it does to me.
Over the years I've realised that the music that moves me is often music that comes from the guts. This certainly fits in that category, and whether you're a fan of blues, country or folk you should not miss The Dust, it's that good.
