MotorCo Durham, NC
Contact: [email protected]
Web: susanwerner.com
Players: Susan Werner, piano, guitar, vocals; Shana Tucker, cello, vocals
Material: It was a sonic cyclone from Kansas, 15 songs in a set that included all the audience favorites delivered in a withering display of poise, presence, and vocal mastery in the folkie musical tradition. Her audience went over the hill for Susan Werner’s homespun Midwest authenticity, washed in the folk spin cycle and tumble dry’d through the Philly, Boston and New York City folk triangle.
Susan romped delightfully through 15 of her best: “Don’t Work With Your Friends,” Bull Durham Operetta “Every Woman Deserves to Wear White,” a haunting looking-back song “Halfway to Houston” and “Dog."
Musicianship: This stage was the perfect setting for Werner’s show—it set off her engaging presence and let her dial up delightful stage banter with this packed house, especially helpful while she fumbled with her lyric sheets. The audio web she spun to tie the entire evening together was pure performance magic; without a single backing track, audio clip or iPhone nonsense, she soared.
This was a master class in sonic-sewing, a skillful demonstration on how to stitch together an evening of song, performance and lyrical stylings, then add a bit of fairy dust to weave a sparkling fabric that took this 40ish crowd on a skip-and-a-jump they’ll be talking about long after the lights go down.
Performance: What’s missing these days is authenticity: ya can’t buy it, ya can’t borrow it and ya can’t fake it, but an artist who can blend their own truth with a few cups of honesty, a pinch of “just being yourself” and a freight train of integrity as Susan Werner did tonight, well kids, that’s the recipe for one hell of a great evening!
It’s Susan on piano, a piano that felt and sounded like it came out of a Wilbur Theatre musical. It looked like a vintage Fender Rhodes, it had so much groove and bing-bang-boom to it. Her style is a mix of Steven Foster, a sprinkling of Brubeck triplets, Quincy Jones’ passing tones and shining thru it all is Werner’s delicate touch, supporting the wonderful vocal.
Summary: Susan Werner comes through town with a wagon train of groove, and enough audio symmetry to spin the earlobe-gyros, serving up a catalog of songs with authenticity and courage.
