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Kathleen Edwards – The Duck Room at Blueberry Hill – St. Louis – May 6, 2008

Just 48 hours earlier, I had never heard of this woman. But now I’m a fan. Sunday night I just happened to watch Austin City Limits and the star was Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas. Alison and Jerry are great and I love their music, but I was expecting that. However what happened after that was very unexpected and transfixing. Kathleen Edwards came onto my TV and then into my psyche. So next I had to check her website. And lo and behold there was a date scheduled for my town, and not weeks or month from now, but right away this week!

I called Blueberry Hill Tuesday afternoon and made sure there were plenty of tickets available. As I walked from my car to the gig, I saw a mammoth tour bus parked next to the club and thought wow, this is a serious production. Inside The Duck Room, the opening act, Last Town Chorus, was halfway through her act. I say “her” because the “Chorus” is a solo artist – Megan Hickey - albeit backed by a chorus of prerecorded drums, bass and keyboards. She was OK, but not great in my mind.

Kathleen started her own set with a slow number and then turned up the intensity. Then after a few up-tempo numbers she brought us back to mellow land with a ballad. Sorry I can’t provide you with a set list at this time, but you understand I was just recently introduced. Obviously there were people in the audience already familiar with her music. Some of them were actually going nuts.

Ms. Edwards has a lot of things going for her. She has a beautiful voice. She has written three albums of songs that aren’t just petty drivel. She competently plays guitar, harmonica and violin. Her harmonica playing is actually as good as some famous people who do it partly for a living, although I know that’s not saying a lot. On guitar she enjoys rocking out. With violin she makes no mistakes. She’s good looking. She has ample stage presence, a sense of humor and knows how to captivate an audience. She has cool choices in guitar and amp selection. And she put together a very good band.

Born in 1979, Kathleen Edwards is from Ottawa, Canada and lived overseas twice as the daughter of foreign service parents. She started playing violin at age five, had a particularly good teacher who instilled in her a passion for musical performance, and the story as they say, went from there. Instead of being immersed in the usual North American pop and MTV garbage, she listened a lot to her older brother’s music collection of Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Neil Young records. After high school overseas, she went back to Ottawa and started playing live gigs solo and with others. Some of you may have seen her open for Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones. I don’t know where the hell I’ve been lately, but I obviously missed this one until this week.

What kind of music do they play, you ask? Well, it’s one of my kinds of music – I guess that’s one reason I like it. The music industry might lump it in with “Alt Country,” but why go by labels alone? If you have a job, you can afford to buy a compact disk or attend one of their shows.

Kathleen played about and hour and a half with encore and included most of the songs from the new album. I didn’t hear any cover songs in her performance. Besides herself, there are four other band members: Colin Cripps on lead, rhythm and slide guitars, John Dinsmore on Fender P bass, Joel Anderson on drums and Jim Bryson who plays primarily keyboards, but also played two guitars: a white Gibson SG Custom and a Guild thin-line acoustic-electric. You may have heard of Colin Cripps from bands such as Crash Vegas, Junkhouse or Blue Rodeo. Tuesday night he played mostly a cherry Gibson SG, but also saw time with a Telecaster, a Rickenbacker 360 and a Gibson Explorer or Firebird. Most of the time Kathleen played a nice ol’ Gibson sunburst flattop acoustic (J-45 maybe) with plenty of use shown on its top by the sound hole, but she also played a vintage Les Paul Junior with the band and during one solo number. For amplification, she plugged into a Vox – I’m not sure if it was new or vintage.

On top of all the cool things about this woman – the haunting, ethereal voice, the multi-instrumentation abilities, the excellent band, the old, worn Gibson flattop acoustic, the ‘60s-era Les Paul Junior, the Vox amplifier – on top of all of this, she was wearing a black bra under a lacey, off-white shirt. Now that is rock ‘n’ roll cool!

The dig is going to be that all of her songs sound alike. This is not true, but I think some casual listeners will say so. The songs do have a certain flow about them. The rockers sound one way and the ballads something a bit similar. Anyway, I liked her a hell of a lot – she musically kicks ass quite frankly - and recommend that you buy her music and witness her first-hand on tour.

The price of admission was an extremely reasonable $15.

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From pollstar.com:

Fri 05/09/08 Boulder, CO Fox Theatre

Sat 05/10/08 Aspen, CO Belly Up Aspen

Mon 05/12/08 Santa Fe, NM Santa Fe Brewing Company

Tue 05/13/08 Tucson, AZ Club Congress

Wed 05/14/08 Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern

Fri 05/16/08 West Hollywood, CA Troubadour

appearing at "Sings Like Hell" Concert Series
Sat 05/17/08 Santa Barbara, CA Lobero Theatre

Tue 05/20/08 San Francisco, CA The Independent

Thu 05/22/08 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater

appearing at "Sasquatch! Music Festival"
Sat 05/24/08 Quincy, WA Gorge Amphitheatre

Sun 05/25/08 Kitchener, ON Elements

Mon 05/26/08 Vancouver, BC Richard's On Richards Cabaret

Wed 05/28/08 Calgary, AB Grand Theatre

Thu 05/29/08 Edmonton, AB The Starlite Room

appearing at "Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest"
Wed 07/09/08 Ottawa, ON Lebreton Flats Park

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European and UK dates in June. See website for info: http://www.kathleenedwards.com/

ROCKS OFF - The Rolling Stones Message Board
http://rocksoff.org/cgi-bin/messageboard/YaBB.pl GENERAL >> MAIN BOARD >> Review: Kathleen Edwards – St. Louis - May 6, 2008 http://rocksoff.org/cgi-bin/messageboard/YaBB.pl?num=1210314763 Message started by Wild Bill on May 9^th, 2008 at 1:32am