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Susan Tedeschi
Sat., April 21, Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg
Ybor City Serenade
Fri., April 20, various venues
Nothing fancy. No gimmicks. Just a rock and soul show gushing with emotion, delivered by skilled musicians with a genuine love for some of the best rhythm-and-blues material written in the last 50 years.
That's what audiences were treated to last Saturday at Jannus Landing. Susan Tedeschi sported a black waistcoat, form-fitting blue jeans and a blonde guitar that matched her shoulder-length locks. She swayed back and forth under the stars as she growled a blues number or went high and pretty on a soothing ballad. The only guitarist on stage, she scrunched her face and filled the brisk night air with fiery solos that were by turns gritty and sensual. But it was her voice, a truly expressive instrument, that packed the biggest punch.
"I cried and I cried," she sang, "'Til I just couldn't cry no more." She delivered the pain-soaked lyric to the old-school R&B standard "Soul of A Woman" with the controlled passion of a performer at home with the blues. Tedeschi understands that even lines about shedding tears -- when read correctly, with equal parts strength and understanding -- have an uplifting effect on the listener. She sang the hell out of that song and a clutch of others.
One of her generation's finest torchbearers of vintage R&B, Tedeschi, 36, delighted the crowd of baby boomers and jam-banders with a set list that favored songs from her fourth and latest album, Hope and Desire. Produced by Joe Henry, it's a collection of mostly '60s soul classics personalized by Tedeschi's tender-yet-tough vocal prowess. Her sweet-gal stage presence included plenty of tiny-voiced thank-yous.
Tedeschi's band included a drummer, bassist, tenor saxophonist and the other star of the evening, keyboardist Kofi Burbridge, who in addition to ladling out rippling organ runs, offered tasteful flute solos on songs such the Bob Dylan favorite "Don't Think Twice," which Tedeschi has been making her own since recording it in 2002. Another standout was Tedeschi's reading of The Rolling Stones' "You Got the Silver" and her raucous rendition of Otis Redding's "Security."
She started her encore with John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery." I recognized the song right away and thought it an odd choice considering that Bonnie Raitt, with whom Tedeschi is often compared, has been performing it wonderfully for decades. But once Tedeschi started singing, my reservations evaporated. She took the sad song about a woman stuck in a dead-end marriage and transformed it into a gorgeous hymn of hope, making it a worthwhile endeavor even sans originality.
The shiny baby grand piano stood on the sidewalk of Ninth Avenue near El Pasaje Plaza in Ybor City. Snippets of pre-recorded dialogue emanated from speakers. Without warning, Charles Farrell's hands exploded across the keyboard, becoming a hyperkinetic blur of organized chaos, the right hand leading, the left following close behind, drowning out the loops and anything else floating in the air. Farrell, who lives but rarely performs in Tampa, appeared as part of the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image. His piano work was jaw-dropping -- not something most people would want in large doses, but a spectacle to behold all the same. Too bad there were only perhaps a dozen folks on hand to witness this spasm of avant-gardistry.
I witnessed another remarkable performance the same night at the nearby Orpheum, where the Del Castillo brothers (Mark and Rick) wowed attendees with their twin attack on Spanish guitar. Playing with the intuition of, well, siblings, the two men intertwined their licks to deliver a performance that was both pleasing to the ear and riveting to watch.
Finally, I made it over to the New World Brewery to witness Tampa jam instrumentalists, Poetry 'n Lotion. The quintet is led by electric mandolin player Jim Page, and they kept things fresh with a set list that jumped from jazz covers to a rendition of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs."
