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Curtis Ensler's Collection

Marcia Ball   09/06/1998

Bumbershoot Blues stage (Mural Amphitheatre), Seattle, WA
Media CDR   2 discs
Notes Traded as 9/7/98. But they played the Festival 9/5 & 9/6 and 9/5 was at the Opera House. Much longer than the 9/7 that appears on most lists but that would be accounted for by two additional songs at beginning ? And they make a reference to "this afternoon" early on and their set on 9/6 was in the afternoon. I give up.
J-Card Comment Marcia Ball, Irma Thomas, Tracy Nelson
Bumbershoot Blues stage
(Mural Amphitheatre)
Seattle, Wa
09/07/1998

Source: DSBD (SBD > Sony TCD-D7 Dat)
Master recorded by Bob Lofgren

Transfer: Sony DTC-ZE700 > Edirol R-09 > Cd wave >Traders Helper > flac Level 8
Transfer by Bob Lofgren

CD 1
1. Sing It
2. I Want To Do Everything For You
3. He's Mine
4. Woman On The Move
5. Please No More
6. People Will Be People
7. Heart To Heart
8. If I Know You
9. In Tears
10. Introductions

CD 2
1. Red Beans Cookin'
2. Time Is On My Side
3. I'm Gonna' Miss You
4. Shouldn't I Love You ?
5. Love Maker
6. You Don't Know Nothin' About Love
7. Yield Not to Temptation
8. You Were Here



Monday, September 7, 1998 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

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Divas Rule Bumbershoot -- Festival Fans Get A Potent Dose Of Woman Power

Misha Berson

Seattle Times Theater Critic

No one has officially proclaimed the 1998 Bumbershoot Festival the Year of the Diva. But the popular Seattle arts and entertainment extravaganza is featuring so many hotshot female performers this time around, we might as well be the one to raise the issue.

The crowds at the Seattle Center for this summer's Bumbershoot (which runs through tonight) are somewhat thinner than last year, despite the fine weather. That's probably because there aren't as many big-time, rock-stadium acts drawing in the teen music-fan contingent.

The extra elbow room has been a blessing for many attendees, who have been encountering fast-moving lines (or no lines at all) for indoor headline acts. (For stadium shows, there were longer waits at booths for the free wristbands required for entry.)

At numerous stages, small and large, Woman Power is in full force. Yes, we do mean Woman Power - not Girl Power. That's woman, as in well-honed talent and maturity, in acts ranging from neo-folkie singer-songwriter Dar Williams to R&B perennial Irma Thomas, and from rockabilly goddess Wanda Jackson to protest pioneer Joan Baez.

One of the artistic pinnacles of this year's Bumbershoot (so far) was the glorious Saturday night concert of a South American star, the charismatic Afro-Peruvian performer Susanna Baca.

An exquisite, strikingly graceful woman draped in a long, floating white dress, Baca spoke only Spanish to the Opera House crowd. But she had no trouble at all communicating the sensuous essence of her captivating music, which blends emotive Spanish melodies with beguiling African rhythms played on traditional Peruvian instruments.

As the barefoot Baca danced and sang in a light-hued but elegant voice, her musical cohorts on acoustic guitar, cajon (a large wooden box, played as a drum), congas and bass surrounded her with a haunting, undulating samba-like sound, the aural equivalent of palm leaves swaying in a balmy breeze.

On many songs they also sang along with Baca, in a call-and-response, chant-song mode. And the band's richly layered arrangements included such indigenous rhythm instruments as the guapeo (clay pot) and the quijada (jawbone of a donkey).

Baca is a champion of this sophisticated but long-neglected roots music, originally created by African slaves in the coastal regions of Peru. She appeared on the David Byrne-produced disc, "The Soul of Black Peru," has issued a well-received album of her own, and recently took part in a Global Divas tour that stopped in Seattle.

At the Opera House, Baca was so warmly received and had so winning a performance that it shouldn't be long before she returns for an encore. Perhaps at next year's WOMAD festival?

American divas rule, too

An Opera House treat of another sort was the inspired matchup of three gutsy American divas: blue-eyed-blues purveyor Tracy Nelson, soul music favorite Irma Thomas, and Austin's boogie-woogie piano gal, Marcia Ball.

Backed by a sizeable, New Orleans-flavored band complete with strutting horn section, these ladies took the stage by force early yesterday afternoon. (They played again, outdoors, last night.)

A little rowdy, a little bawdy, they were clearly having a blast with each other and the audience, even if the formal Opera House setting was not an ideal setting for this lusty good-time music.

But listening to the trio dig into such harmonized tunes as "Sing It"' and the super-funky feminist shouter, "Woman on the Move," you could almost transport yourself mentally to a rollicking roadhouse somewhere in the Southwest.

Thomas, a proud grandmother who has obviously sipped from the same fountain of youth that Tina Turner frequents, poured on the patent soul in "People Will Be People," aided by classic Stax-Volt-style horn licks. The lanky Ball showed off her New Orleans-honed piano chops in the rave-up, "I Got My Red Beans Cookin'."

And Nelson, ever the down-home earth mother, belted her Nashville-tinged heartbreaker "In Tears" with shivery power.

They say divas don't like to share the spotlight. These three do it with humor and warmth, on stage and on their new joint album, "Sing It!"

Samples of blues, folk

Out on the blues stage, Elvis contemporary Wanda Jackson offered her own brand of zesty vocal exuberance, crackling through such signature tunes as "They Called it Rockabilly (Before They Called It Rock 'n' Roll)." Jackson was nearly upstaged, though, by the red-bloused, big-haired gal in her backup band, the Cadillac Angels, who not only slapped and twirled her stand-up bass but climbed on top of it.

In a more sedate mode, one could travel to the folk stage for a rendezvous with singer-songwriter-fiddler Laurie Lewis and her fine band. Reliable as ever, they turned in a set of California sweetwater acoustic music at its choicest.

If you haven't met your diva quota yet, there are quite a few yet to come on today's Bumbershoot schedule. They include: up-and-coming singer-songwriter Mary Lou Lord (in the Opera House from 1 to 2 p.m.); poet-playwright Ntozake Shange and the Rituals Project (Opera House, 6:45 to 8 p.m.); rising country music singer Kim Richey (Northwest Court Stage, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.); and, at Memorial Stadium, the one and only Joan Baez (6:30 to 7:30 p.m.), and the inimitable blues queen Bonnie Raitt (9:30 to 11 p.m.).

Copyright (c) 1998 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.
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