You know it’s going to be a good night of music when the first thing you hear on the loudspeakers as the lights go dim is Thelonious Monk’s rendition of the hymn “Abide With Me”. A night of swinging spirituals?
Well, just about!
Opening up the night was teacher-gone-rockabilly artist JD McPherson and his band based on the sounds of Sun Records. The half hour set focused on moods of Early Elvis and Pre-Beatles, but McPherson through the years as added an extra depth to his repertoire. There are still fun times as he growled through the two steppers like “Bossy” and the yackety saxing “North Side Gal”, there was an added darkness, with a dash of modern punk as McPherson took on a song from Iggy Pop (“Lust For Life”) and gave some Bo Diddley R&B to “Precious” before closing on a teen romanced “Let The Good Times Roll”. Songs for rockin’ lovers.
If you’ve ever seen that famous picture of Robert Plant on stage with a dove landing on his hand, you’ve got to start believing that maybe that was a foreshadowing of his eventual meeting up with Alison Krauss decades later.
Turning 73 in a day or two, Plant has done what few vocalists of his generation are capable of–coming to peace with his past and confidently entering musical new musical lands that may actually be one’s original comfort food. Growing up in a time of vocal harmonies, English folk music and American blues, Plant has been catalyzed by the bluegrass vocalist/violinist Allison Krauss to create a symbiotic sound that makes each artists sparkle just a bit more than previously imagined. Isn’t that what men and woman are supposed to do?
With Victor Krauss/g-mand, Stuart Duncan/g-vi, Jay Bellos/dr, Dennis Crouch/b and JD McPherson returning with enough different guitars to make even Joe Bonamassa green with envy, Plant and Krauss created gorgeous harmonies, sometimes melding, sometimes volleying as on the blue and murky “Rich Woman”, the chunky, mechanical and ominous “Fortune Teller” or the relentless raga of “High and Lonesome” with Krauss adding silver stringed solos.
Plant reinvented his past with a hoot of a two stepping Cajun take of “Rock and Roll” (what? no samba of “Whole Lotta Love”?!?) while having Krauss take on the spirit of Sandy Denny on a Fairport Convention-ish “The Battle Of Evermore” and creating a Hound of Baskervilles rumble and fog on a foreboding “When The Levee Breaks” with two violins howling in the murky bog.
Krauss showed great strength and variety in her voice, fitting moods ranging from a Patsy Cline’d “Trouble With My Lover” to a Pentangle-inspired mix of blues and countryside on the English tale “Go Your Way” and the medieval “It Don’t Bother Me”.
During the entire evening, Plant displayed his dna of the Cumberland Gap harmonies of the Everly Brothers, a lost art these days, as on the cheerful tearful in the beerful “Leave My Woman Alone” and the Nashville skyline of “Gone Gone Gone”.
As Plant commented after the encore of “Can’t Let Go” closing the 1 ½ set of a 10 year reunion, “You had a million alternatives of what to do tonight, but you chose the best one by being here.” There were no arguments from the 11,000 ears at the Greek.
Upcoming shows at the Greek include 09/04 Jackson Browne, 09/06-07 Alicia Keys, 9/24 Bonnie Riatt w/ Mavis Staples and 10/16 Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band