A musician regarded by many to be the most compelling British blues artist since the great names of the sixties heads to Beverley in November for the first major live Beverley Blues gig in two years.
Ian Siegal plays the Masonic Hall in Trinity Lane on Thursday, November 11 as the forerunner of a return of the annual Beverley Blues Weekender in 2022.
“We’ve been promoting a weekend festival since 2011 but Covid forced us to cancel our plans last year. Now we’re really excited to be bringing Ian to the town and the message we’re getting is that people can’t wait to see and hear live blues again,” said Graham Hyde, guitarist with Beverley blues band The Juke Joint Kings and one of the volunteers behind the event.
In more than a quarter-century of touring, multi-award winner Ian Siegal’s mission statement has barely changed: songs that are real, shows that resonate, vocals served raw.
Classic Rock tags Siegal as “a national treasure” while MOJO magazine ranks him “the cleverest writer and most magnetic blues performer in the UK.”
He has taken his music to some 50 countries and presided over a trophy haul that includes two UK Blues Awards, 10 British Blues Awards, four European Blues Awards, two Mojo Blues Albums Of The Year not to mention three US Blues Music Awards nominations – an unprecedented nod for a non-American. And that’s just what he has clocked up in the past ten years.
Singer-guitarist Siegal is known as a bluesman, but it’s just one shade in the palette of an artist who slips between continents, eras and expectations.
They say you can’t sing the blues until you’ve lived the life, and when Ian Siegal steps up to the mic, you can hear the slings and arrows. His forte is playing to an audience. He takes command of the stage in a way very few artists alive today can match. Sweat, passion, humour, incendiary slide guitar and a soul-infused voice big enough to fell trees!
Each year his influence spreads further, but what sticks most in Ian’s mind is his guest appearance at London’s Jazz Café with 92-year old Pinetop Perkins and other remaining members of Muddy Waters’ band.
Then later at a festival in Norway, in a role reversal and totally unexpected, these legends of post-war Blues spontaneously joined Ian on stage for what turned into a memorable hour-long set.
Tickets for Ian’s Beverley gig have gone on sale and cost £14 (plus booking fee) and are available here
“We’re expecting this to be a sell-out so we would urge people to book as soon as possible,” said Graham Hyde. “We’re determined to be back bigger and better than ever for a full weekend of live blues next year.”
