Posts Tagged ‘Joel Patterson’

“Cry Baby Cry”: Christine Ohlman Meets George Brantley

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

Video by Joel Patterson

Live from Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, Christine Ohlman and her band Rebel Montez tell the tale behind the nearly forgotten soul song “Cry Baby Cry.”

Call it “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About ‘Cry Baby Cry’ But Were Afraid to Ask.” The first six minutes of the above video features Christine telling the story of how she stumbled upon an inconspicuous record at a tag sale, and how it changed her life. Finally at long last she plays with her band Rebel Montez their own luxuriously smooth rendition – stately, haunting and heartrending.

George Brantley, who with his brother sang the original 1968 version (credited as “Van & Titus”), was there in the crowd at Caffe Lena, and then afterwards they all sat around talking about the blues as an art form and music in general. As the credits roll, we listen to the original ole 45…

ALSO READ:
LIVE: Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez @ Caffe Lena, 4/19/13
Five Firsts: Christine Ohlman of Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez

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LIVE: The Chandler Travis Three-O @ Caffe Lena, 3/15/13

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

Review and video by Joel Patterson

The cult of true believers surrounding Chandler Travis and his acoustic quartet the Three-O continues to metastasize – and with good reason! At least, I hope they’re good reasons. Personally, I’m straight up a junkie for the guy’s therapeutic New Orleans-eated style blues, and his even more bewitching ballads with their soothing doses of rapture and transcendence. I feel like he’s inoculating me against cynicism and despair, somehow, just listening to it and soaking it in. Chemo for the soul, I call it. It ain’t long before you’re recognizing your fellow patients at these shindigs – the telltale symptoms of rabid devotion are unmistakable to an initiate. I ran into John Ripley, who typically had driven hours to get there. “By the last song [the exquisitely, loftily gorgeous "Things to You,"] my cheeks were wet.” He swabbed them with his fingers. “That’s what it’s about.”

Win FREE TICKETS to “Blues for the Steamer” at the Steamer No. 10 Theatre on Saturday!

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
Holly & Evan performing at the Putnam Den in Saratoga Springs (photo by Joel Patterson)

Holly & Evan (photo by Joel Patterson)

There’s no better cure for the blues than the blues… So shake off those mid-winter blues with a double-barrelled blast of the blues at Albany’s Steamer No. 10 Theatre this Saturday evening (February 23).

“Blues for the Steamer” is a benefit concert for the theater, and the dynamic double-bill features some of the finest talents on the Capital Region blues scene.

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LIVE: The Catbirds @ Keegan Ales, 1/18/13

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Review and video by Joel Patterson

Familiarity breeds contempt? I don’t THINK so.

The more time I spend with the Catbirds, both individually and collectively, the more deeply I fall under their spell. The sound they make drives twenty-something girls into feats of athletic frenzy, and their boyfriends to dive head-first toward the stage. It roars in with all the gentleness of a hurricane, loud and slamming and savage. You might mistakenly think people who play that blaring, thunderous rock and roll music all night are somehow brutes, at least a little brusque, if not totally downright beastly – you couldn’t be more wrong. These are four of the most sensitive, vulnerable spirits – with curious eyes wide open to the world – that you’ll ever meet in the time-space continuum.

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LIVE: The Figgs @ Valentine’s Music Hall, 12/21/12

Thursday, December 27th, 2012

The Figgs (photo by Joel Patterson)

Review and photograph by Joel Patterson

Rock and roll is not complicated. Its force and majesty is all about the simple. Some of the best songs are just short, everyday phrases, repeated twice or three times. The Figgs are such masters of this craft that they made your correspondent and the 75 or so other party hounds at Valentine’s Music Hall in Albany last Friday night forget about everything happening outside its walls (as well as whatever was going on upstairs?)

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LIVE: NRBQ @ Maxwell’s, 11/25/12

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Terry Adams

Terry Adams


Review and photograph by Joel Patterson

You like twisting, convoluted backstories? Lucky you!

The saga of NRBQ (New Rhythm & Blues Quartet) should make for some interesting bedtime reading… the long and short of it is this: Terry Adams, one of the original founders of the group in the 1970s, is touring with the latest incarnation, which honestly might equally be called “Terry Adams and three handpicked, much younger guys,” or TATHMYG, for short.

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LIVE: The Chandler Travis Philharmonic @ Valentine’s Music Hall, 11/3/12

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

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Review and video by Joel Patterson

When I say “there’s something like ecstasy at every Chandler Travis concert,” I’m not talking about the drug – I mean the real thing. This guy is a sorcerer – something happens that goes way beyond the bounds of everyday life, you kind of start to leak into a different dimension– or maybe you’re just so overtaken by the joyful spirit of the music, you see the world in a different way? As you can tell, I’m quite confused by it and my testimony could be suspect… but I do know I find myself singing along with every song, energized, and I wonder if I might burst into babbling tongues, like at a tent revival meeting, slobbering and rolling on the ground and the whole bit.

Naturally thinking I might just be insane, I sought out Fred Rudofsky’s counsel, because I found him sitting at a table with wondering and almost glazed eyes. “They are open to everything they’ve ever heard,” he explained to me. “All those influences come through and they’re blending together, and you end up with something completely original.” That’s why this music touches all your nerves and tingles to your bones. It’s the DNA of every popular music form, recombined and newly reborn, but I still say there’s something mystical there, something inexpressible and divine and celestial.

LIVE: Chandler Travis Philharmonette @ Peint O Gwrw, 9/22/12

Monday, October 1st, 2012

Review by Joel Patterson and Denise Borden
Video by Joel Patterson

In the spirit of cover versions that meet or exceed the original, better put another notch in your lipstick case for the Chandler Travis Philharmonette’s “Cry Baby Cry.” The CTP’ette has championed this obscure late-’60s tune from the all-but-unknown duo of Van & Titus ever since longtime friend/musician Christine Ohlman, the “Saturday Night Live” beehive queen singer, played it for him after she uncovered it while rummaging through boxes of records at a yard sale. Christine, like Chandler, adored the song from first listen. So much so that she went on to record it in a powerful performance with her guest singer Dion on her most recent album “The Deep End.”

And as Travis explains, Van & Titus “only did two singles, ever, in their whole lives. When you think about it – this is only one of four songs these guys put out – it just breaks your heart.” Heartbreak never felt so good. They performed at the Peint O Gwrw under the adoring gaze of owners Tom and Lynne Hope. Sound reinforcement by Rob Caldwell. Often hosting music on Friday nights and some Saturdays, Peint o Gwrw is a Welsh pub on Main Street in Chatham, proudly sporting an eclectic pub menu and an extensive beer list, to drown your sorrows…

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