Milteau is a musician who likes to put things in perspective and his show at Le Sunset begins with a series of subtle blues instrumentals, tinged with an occasional dash of jazz and county. These give rise to an impressive display of alternating solos on bass, guitar and his adopted instrument, the harmonica. Once the moody blues ambience is up and running, Milteau changes tack, segueing into a rhythmic boogie-woogie and announcing that "according to music legend, the man who wrote this died three days after he wrote this, one night in 1928." This is no simple anecdote from a consummate showman. Milteau's concerts are never purely about performance, they aim to plunge the audience directly into the musical history of America's Deep South, exploring multiple facets of style and emotion.

"These days, says Milton, "for non-musical reasons, the U.S. isn't exactly a popular place." But in the course of the twentieth century it was in the heart of America that a major part of the most influential musical culture was forged. As a teenager, Milteau tapped into this rich source of inspiration, discovering the force of counterculture through Bob Dylan. This proved to be a major turning-point in his adolescence. "I replaced all my Beatles albums with Dylan ones," he remembers, "To me, there was something totally new and groundbreaking about his music. That's when I started dreaming about the blues…"   

Milteau acknowledges that "playing blues now isn't exactly a political statement or an act of rebellion." But he sees the blues as a sort of universal folklore, a mine of ideas and emotions that can be tapped into at will. Blues is a common heritage which has been constantly reworked and recreated in other styles. "Blues," according to Milteau, "has its own roots and its own history, but anyone can come along and appropriate it, using it with his own sensibility. And sometimes the image someone has from the outside can almost be more interesting than the reality… You know, one day this kid came up and asked me how come I loved the blues when I wasn't black? And my answer was 'What you create doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the whole of humanity!'" As to the question of whether he's a bluesman or not, Milteau insists, "I'm not a bluesman, I'm a blues fan. I wouldn't dare compare myself to a bluesman, because I'm not coming out of the same social, cultural or ethnological context."

Meanwhile, back at Le Sunset the American singer Demi Evans joins Milteau on stage, entrancing the audience with her magnificent vocals, her musical sensibility and her innate sense of rhythm. A female presence appears to be essential to Milteau's music right now, both on stage and in the studio. On the album Fragile – and at Le Sunset – Demi Evans and Michelle Shocked relay one another on stage, the black and white singers, both from Texas, fusing their voices with Milteau's inspired harmonica.

Demi Evans, who grew up surrounded by the blues from earliest childhood, has a diverse musical background, having touched on everything from soul to rock in the course of her career. She and Milteau have known one another for a year now and, besides preparing the album Fragile together, they have also performed as a trio with Manu Galvan. "Demi cottoned on to our way of working as a group pretty quickly," says Milteau, "I really wanted to use the voice as an instrument in its own right and not just work with a singer performing with backing musicians. We're all very respectful of each other's space – and that's not an attitude you always find in singers. In my work as a sideman, I've come across some very big egos in my time!"

As for Milteau's collaboration with black American musicians, this came somewhat later in his career. But his last album, Memphis, marked a first foray into this domain. "Memphis marked a new beginning in my musical life," he claims, "It was my first collaboration with the producer Sébastien Danchin, who's an absolute expert on black music from the U.S. He really helped inject my work with a new momentum."

Back at Le Sunset, Milteau pursues his show with a Neil Young cover, a tribute to Ray Charles and a reworking of Little Waters, harmonica, guitar and acoustic bass enhancing the singers' sensual vocals and gestures. Having insisted on the richness and complexity of musical history throughout his show, proving that music is never monochrome, never the property of any one particular community – country can be played by blacks and blues by whites – Milteau ends on a high note with a breathtaking harmonica solo played right up close to the audience without the aid of amplifiers, then a rousing soul finale of a Marvin Gaye favourite.

Audiences will be able to experience more Milteau magic throughout March and April 2006.