For at least one night, the Son of a Bluesman Lucky Peterson turned the upscale Vibrato Grill into a back road juke joint with a smoky set Wednesday night. With his air-tight team of Tim Waits/b, Kelyn Crapp/b and Raul Valdes/dr, Peterson lowered the ceiling 30 feet, threw some sawdust on the floor and delivered a 70 minute set that took the crowd to the dirt roads of Memphis and the side streets of Chicago’s south side.
At the piano, Peterson hit the ivories in full stride with the band shuffling off a deep rivulet as he growled out a toe tapping take of “Kansas City” before going full fisted along with Valdes’ relentless beat and Crapp’s funky pickings on a blues-whaling “Take Me Away.” Crapp’s strings begged for mercy as the bent to exhaustion and Peterson sermonized as he pounded the piano pulpit on “It Ain’t Safe” and testified with a gospel’d soul on a lovely and reflective “Trouble.”
Switching over to guitar, Peterson and company changed gears with the team getting gritty on a medley of songs straight out of Chicago’s Fuller Park as Peterson picked and grin on the guitar, strolled through the seated guests and wailed on classics such as “Little Red Rooster,” delivering more sweet licks than a Tootsie Roll Pop. Not only were his guitar skills impressive, but his voice was able to range from clear toned crooner to old school shouter with the drop of a silver quarter.
Closing up the evening, Peterson welcomed vocalist Tamara Tramell to the stage who soulfully strutted through a funky chicken’d “I Wanna Know,” a sensuously samba’d and jazzy “Good Enough” and a foot stomping “The Last Night You Left” before stomping out a drenching “I Can’t Stand The Rain” that was as steamy as a summer tropical storm.
In this day of sanitized musical stylings and pasteurized passions, it’s refreshing to know that there are still artists like Lucky Peterson who are able to remind fans who crave music with integrity, delivered with feeling and with no extra frills or glamour. In a day when everyone eats out, it’s nice to have mom’s home cookin’.
Upcoming shows at Vibrato include Nutty 09/09, Frank Stallone 09/12, George Kahn 09/15, Anne Walsh 09/21 and Otmaro Ruiz 09/29