By: David Rachac
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Host Leslie Ball - Publicity photo from her website
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The final of four shows from the Singer-Songwriter Women's Series sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio saw five Minnesota-based female artists take the stage in front of a receptive crowd Saturday night at the Fitzgerald Theater. The show was emceed by singer Leslie Ball, creator of the Saturday night experimental stage BALLS Cabaret that is hosted by the Southern Theatre. The whole show had a nice cabaret feel to it as well, with Ball starting off the show with a song, and then effusively talking a little bit about each performer before introducing her.
JoAnna James was the first to perform, accompanied by her band mate Ben Foote on upright bass. She began with Dan Israel’s “Waiting So Long,” starting it off as a bluesy shuffle before snapping it into upbeat pop. A new song, “Nobody’s Girl,” followed, with Foote’s background vocals providing warm companionship to James’ sad lead. She finished her set with a soulful reading of “Trouble Of The World” (a song most frequently associated with Mahalia Jackson), which allowed her to display her considerable vocal range.
Not having a lot of exposure to the worlds of spoken-word and hip-hip beyond the mainstream, I might reference familiar artists like Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and Queen Latifah when trying to describe Desdamona’s sound – but those descriptions don’t do this talented artist justice. Accompanied by the jaw-dropping beat box vocalist Tyrell, she mixed spoken-word verses with sung choruses and call-and-response interplay with an audience that quickly embraced her and her themes of female empowerment, self-respect and hope for the future. She balanced her positive-philosophy flow with calls to action, hitting us with lines like “We are the mesh that these next children will be sifted through/So it’s our responsibility to give them something to hold onto.” Listening to her was a thought-provoking and moving experience.
Karen Paurus’ musical journey has followed an eclectic arc, from singing with pop-rock acts like Holiday Ranch and BUG! to collaborating on comedienne Colleen Kruse’s play “Thirty Days in Frogtown” to her current gig singing torch songs and playing piano with Lili’s Burlesque. Accompanied by Tom Lewandowski on upright bass, she coolly grasped the audience with a wistful original song called “I Forgot” off of her upcoming CD. After a raucous cover of Tom Waits' “Murder In The Red Barn,” Paurus played piano on a tango-infused piece that was so new that she hadn’t got around to naming it yet, but the sweet sadness of the chorus repeating, “I just like dancing, with you” stuck with me throughout the rest of the song.
Haley Bonar’s recent CD Lure The Fox will reside at the top of many critics’ Top Ten lists this year, and her performance left no doubt as to why. Her shy, quiet demeanor melded perfectly with the somber mood of the audience, letting her reflective songs breathe in the large space. Being the only performer with a full band gave her a power not afforded to the other performers, but it was her vocal harmony with bassist Chris Morrissey, especially on “Daisy Girls,” that was the most impressive. After playing “Highway 16” (a song she joked that she was “about the same age as” when she wrote it), they finished the set with the up-tempo “Give It Up” as the final song before intermission.
Following intermission, Ball reintroduced each performer and gave each of them the opportunity to talk a little bit about herself. Desdamona talked about her grandmother and the encouragement she received from her to write poetry, and then did a piece so powerful it should be required reading for every child in school, which included the lines:
Your memory expands past what your eyes can see
And you can use this knowledge to set you free
You are too big for your skin
Not too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too pretty, too white, too black
You are too big for your skin and honey, there ain’t one thing bad about that
Bonar said she wanted to play the quiet “Hawaii” at the Fitzgerald because “it gets drowned out at the Turf Club and the 400 Bar,” to which she got a knowing laugh. Paurus played a stunning song on the piano, hauntingly repeating the line, “I like to smoke in my car” several times. And James finished the set with “No Ordinary Sunday,” a song she said she wrote when she was touring on the East Coast last month.
For the finale, all five women joined onstage to sing the traditional hymn “Farther Along,” with Desdamona weaving in her original spoken-word piece “Hymn of the Human Spirit” over James’ guitar playing. After Tyrell was asked back onstage as “an honorary woman,” the show ended with Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made For Walking” wrapped around another Desdamona original, “Mr. Pretender.”
Location Info:
Fitzgerald Theater
Artist Info: Desdamona, Haley Bonar, JoAnna James, Karen Paurus, Leslie Ball
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