A tangled brew with Australian bluesman Spiegel

THE NEW BLUES: Pictured here performing at Rotterdam’s historic harbour, Lloyd Spiegel will play at the Dome on Wednesday night. “I toured with Lloyd in the Netherlands and he’s a fantastic storyteller, musician and a great person to work with,” says photographer Theo Looijmans. Picture by Theo Looijmans

This is 40 flavours of wrong but there are those of us who are cured of the blues through subjection to interminable jams during our formative afternoons.

Australian bluesman Lloyd Spiegel is about to resolve that trauma with what Australian Guitar Player Magazine describes as a deconstructed blues guitar style.

“(He) makes sweet love to it, then kicks it out the back door.”

With songs like Tangled Brew, Spiegel’s acoustic guitar work brings to mind English modern folkie John Martyn’s guitar magic and riffs that are not a million miles away from Stairway to Heaven and take blues into another sweet, new direction.

The lyrics are pure poetry. Here are a few lines to break your heart.

“Strings are breaking everywhere/ spirit broke in two/ eyes upon the opened door/ ghosts are walking through.”

Anyway, anti-blues recusants — how could you not dig the wry irony of a line like “If I killed ya when I met ya I’d be out of jail now”?

Rolling Stone magazine describes the seven time Australian Blues Award winner as an Oz blues and roots icon — “A revelation, the consummate performer” — while Australian Guitar Magazine recently listed Spiegel as one of the 50 greatest Australian guitarists of all time.

Spiegel is said to have taken an interest in the blues when he was six years old and found an album by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee in his father’s record collection.

He won his first talent competition at the age of 10 and played regular gigs in Melbourne. As a 13 year old Spiegel was frontman for his band Midnight Special for five years.

Since 1996 he has worked as a solo performer, and has supported Billy Thorpe, Jimmy Barnes, The Hoodoo Gurus and The Angels as well as Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and Etta James on tour.

Lloyd Spiegel, the Dome, Wednesday, 7pm. Presales $20 from www.eventfinda.co.nz or Aviary (cash only), $25 on the door.