If, as some are predicting, we�re heading back to the 1930s, then Chris Smither should do the soundtrack.

Star rating *****
If, as some are predicting, we're heading back to the 1930s, then Chris Smither should do the soundtrack. Because just as folk down in the Mississippi delta back then had blues troubadours to document the times, lift the spirits and even play for dancing, Smither is the very man to do all three simultaneously.

The Florida-born, New Orleans-raised singer-guitarist has the current American administration summed up to a T in Diplomacy and although dancing wasn't entirely on the agenda here - everyone's too caught up in Smither's weathered delivery and locomotive guitar momentum - his miked-up feet are all the rhythm section you'd ever need.

As for lifting the spirits, Smither does it in every song. There's always optimism behind the hurt, wryness in his observations or just plain honest to goodness love in his words, be they for the woman he can't do without or his dad. Smither is a poet of plentiful wit. His Origin of Species races through the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark to Charles Darwin and DNA's discovery on a wave of sage rhyming couplets and wonderfully succinct, finger-picked guitar.

He can update a well-worn theme with sharp word play and an insanely catchy tune, as on his own brilliant Leave the Light On, and refresh and invest with new meaning even some of the oldest blues lines - his slow, moody Sitting on Top of the World was a masterclass in the form. But then his whole performance was a masterclass, from the apt and dazzling Open Up to his smouldering version of old favourite and current Alison Krauss-Robert Plant hit Killing the Blues.