2/14/17

Pam and I, along with our friends Stuart and Marla, spent Valentine’s Day night listening to Brandy Clark at the Troubadour.  Brandy Clark is a great singer songwriter.  While her non-pop, non-mainstream themes do not always lend themselves to broad audience appeal, we think she is great.  Her sophomore CD, Big Day in a Small Town, earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album, as did her first album, 12 Stories.  This was the fourth time all of us were going to listen to her.  We knew with absolute certainty that this would be a big night in a big town.

As I have written about before, we love listening to Brandy Clark.  We first heard her when she opened for Jennifer Nettles at The Wiltern a couple of years ago.  At that time, she blew us away with her performance and we became instant fans.  I have a habit of buying CDs from artists playing in small venues.  I have bought them in bars from Nashville to Wailea.  I have bought them in outdoor malls.  I have bought them in small venues, including The El Rey, The Wiltern, and The Bluebird Cafe.  I recognize it is somewhat of a sickness, but I do it anyway.  Pam laughs at me for it, mainly because I usually do not ever listen to the CDs after I bring them home.  Not so with the CD I bought from Brandy Clark after her performance at The Wiltern.  I listened to that one.  A lot.

The only real question on Valentine’s Day was whether she would be playing acoustic guitar with some acoustic accompaniment or whether she would have her band.  Personally, I was hoping for the fully acoustic show without her band.  In my opinion, Brandy Clark has the perfect voice for playing acoustic country or acoustic anything for that matter.  To my mostly untrained ears she never misses a note.  Her voice is sweet and light, with just a perfect amount of twang to make her eminently listenable.  Anything, like a band, that takes away from her vocal delivery would just detract from the show.  We saw her at the Hotel Café a year or so ago, and she put on an acoustic show. It was off the charts good, and I was hoping for a repeat performance.  She did not disappoint.

Brandy Clark has a unique gift for bringing interesting characters to life in her songs.  Some songs are poignant character studies of downtrodden souls.  Others are slightly off color comedies, with interesting twists.  Others are slightly inane.  Others are noir stories of failed loves.  Others are just plain wicked, such as “Daughter,” one of the best, if not most amusing, revenge songs I have ever heard.  Her lyrics are fun and thought provoking.  Her melodies are pleasing.  All are great to listen to.  And listen we did.

She played acoustically for about an hour and a half, working thru a setlist that included songs from both of her albums and a few covers.  Her performance was flawless.  It WAS A BIG NIGHT IN A BIG TOWN for us.  The highlight of the show for me was her cover of Linda Ronstadt’s, “Blue Bayou.”  It is interesting how much you can learn about an artist when they cover a well known song.  Over the years I have heard many great covers.  Bruce Springsteen is a master at covering songs.  Recently, Pam and I marveled over Zac Brown’s cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” when we saw him at the Hollywood Bowl.  I would rank Brandy Clark’s cover of “Blue Bayou” right up there with any of the best covers I have heard.

We spent Valentine’s Day with Brandy Clark.  I hope we get to do it again.