This is the first of a run of gigs I have coming up at Dingwalls, now one of Londons oldest and more legendary venues and I was excited to get the chance to see Luther and Cody Dickinson again. The last time I saw them was at The Barbican as part of the 'They Came From Memphis' festival that Robert Gordon curated where they had an all star line-up that included their now departed dad Jim Dickinson, Sid Selvidge, Spiritualized's Jason Pierce, Tav Falco and others and was a hell of an event.
I got into Dingwalls just after IAN SIEGAL had come on and he was playing solo electric blues in a way that sounded really good with his nice careworn, lived-in voice. Of course the fact that although he is a young white Brit he managed to get to play with Pinetop Perkins a couple of times does his authenticity no harm but tonight he proved he is good enough to sit in with the great Pinetop, fluidly playing a couple of his songs and a Muddy waters one and complained that yet again all the songs he was playing tonight were covers.
They were good but didn't make me want to buy the CDS as I have to say I prefer the originals and Ian didn't add enough to the songs to make them his own.
It was a bit of a wait for the arrival onstage of CODY AND LUTHER DICKENSON of the NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS as they were billed for tonights show: part of the tour promoting the excellent but downbeat new album Keys To The Kingdom which is about losing their father Jim and Luther becoming a dad for the first time.
Being stripped back to a duo left plenty of room in the sound as they got going. First highlight was Jumper cable Blues that sounded good and tight and like they were about to jump start us with some killer blues action.
Luther made good mention of the fact they were from Mississippi but no mention of the floods that were starting to engulf the region. Going Down South sounded mighty fine and had the solidly 40 plus audience getting into it. I think there were more women there than under 40's. In fact Cody and Luther were about the youngest folks in Dingwalls, which isn't too surprising as the form of loose jammed blues they play hasn't really been fashionable here since the 1970's no matter what the promo for Hugh Laurie's new album might gush.
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The fact that a song like The Meeting (which on the album features Mavis Staples) and even stripped bare live has bags of emotion in it can get lumped in with Laurie's vanity blues project is kind of sad to my ears.
But as the set progressed through the poignant Ain't no Grave and a seriously cooking How I wish my Train Would Come, Luther kept switching his guitars, my favourites being the Cigar Box guitar and the Coffee Can one. They kept getting baggier and the solos longer and more meandering almost like they were stuck inside an endless mutating guitar solo instead of being Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.
It was good when they changed things up enough for Mizzip that saw Cody singing and playing an acoustic guitar rather than drums although he still hit the bass drum pedal.
But the version of Rolling and Tumblin just meandered a bit too much for me and the set seemed to drag on a bit although I was still very happy to hear them play Mean Old Wind Died Down from the soundtrack to Black Snake Moan. The encore brought Ian Siegal and another guest up for a romp through the Furry Lewis classic Casey Jones (On The Road Again). That was well worth missing the last train home for.
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