Wild Bill
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Peace, love y abrazos
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Al Green and Gladys Knight – St. Louis - July 13, 2008
The wife and I saw an excellent show by Al Green and Gladys Knight last night at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis. Gladys night opened and played an hour and five minutes and then after a long break, Al Green played an hour and a quarter. They both played a range of songs from throughout their careers. Al also teased the audience with snippets of five or six different Motown hits. We sure wish he would have extended the show by playing the who song of these blockbusters such as “Bring It On Home To Me.”
Besides the fact that both artists still have very strong voices intact and very professional showmanship, the most satisfying thing about both was the full size and quality of their bands. Miss Knight had seven back-up singers (four male and three female), two guys on drums/percussion, guitar, bass and three keyboardists. One of her keyboardists, music production veteran Benjamin Wright, was also her band leader. Gladys kicked ass and the audience loved her. The call and response between herself and her singers on the songs was her best possible use of the legacy of blues and gospel music.
Al Green seems to have as much energy as ever and is filled with the spirit of the Lord, but knows that not all great music is church music. I almost was expecting him to be turning back flips of joy, but alas, it was just figurative back flips that he was executing. Al’s band consisted of two female back-up vocalists, two drummers/percussionists, two keyboardists, two guitarists, a bassist and a horn section of baritone sax, trumpet and trombone. Those horns added great punctuation to the music. He also has two male dancers who were rather superfluous in my opinion. One also helped out on background vocals part of the time, but the other just danced – and not even on every number – so he could have done without him. Reverend Green had introduced one of the female vocalists as his daughter and joked about “keeping the money in the family,” so maybe one or both of these dancers were kin as well. Anyway, he put on a damn good show, the last song was “Love and Happiness” and there was no encore after that. Tickets were $64.
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Al Green and Gladys Knight – July 13, 2008 (Read 598 times)
