Friday 11 December 2015

Pigmeat Blues Band - What Ever Happened to Ian Buchanan (1969), album review



Lightly Affecting

This 1969 album embraces a kind of genteel but totally authentic blues [or as it is expressed in the liner notes, They Make No Concessions To The Trend Of "Super-Hyperbolic" Freaked Out Bull Shit Blues]. Mostly self-penned by Ian Buchanan and other members of the band, Buchanan’s singing is sweetly bluesy and sugared in its falsetto dallyings, as on Robert Johnson's Kind Hearted Woman [though attributed to the elusive Woody Payne], and vocal duties are also shared across others. The harmonica playing of Buddy Lucan often provides the rudiments of basic blues where guitar and piano lay down the most general of rhythms. In that overall gentleness it is most effective in soothing out the inherent despairs of the genre. This lightish touch is also evident in the country blues of Jimmie Roger's song Desert Blues (Big Chief Buffalo Nickel) and the rock ‘n’ roll blues slant of Don’t You Lie To Me.


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