From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V9 #7 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Wednesday, January 26 2005 Volume 09 : Number 007 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- des moines register concert review [bisontentacle ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:54:31 -0500 From: bisontentacle Subject: des moines register concert review Stylistic shift suits Werner Classic pop inspires folk singer's latest tales, melodies By KYLE MUNSON REGISTER MUSIC CRITIC January 24, 2005 Cole Porter, John Lennon and a farm girl from Manchester, Ia., shared the stage Friday night in concert at a church in West Des Moines. The farm girl has long since grown up, become a renowned folk singer and relocated to Chicago. But Susan Werner still treated her performance at Lighthouse Coffeehouse, a secular folk-music series at West Des Moines Christian Church, like a hometown gig in front of friends and family. That's because Werner has been a repeat performer since the series launched in 2000. And her lone, able sidekick for the night - on bass, clarinet and flute - was childhood friend Dana Andrews, now music director at Hoover High School. But you're probably still scratching your head over Porter and Lennon. Read to the end of the review for Lennon. Meanwhile, Porter and his peers have provided Werner the bulk of her recent inspiration. She explained Friday how she has spent the last few years writing "songs that sound like they're from the 1930s and 1940s." In other words, Werner is trying to channel the Great American Songbook into her own playful piano melodies and lyrical metaphors, as she did so eloquently on her 2004 album, "I Can't Be New." Friday's concert focused on that album and proved that Werner's stylistic shift has been nothing but fruitful. Classic pop is the better showcase for her tragicomic romantic tales and a rich voice that can do everything from scat to roar. Her older folk songs on acoustic guitar, such as the tribute to stoic Midwestern farmers, "Barbed Wire Boys," sounded too earnest and plain by comparison. It's hard to imagine that Werner would've ended up writing songs with as much wicked glee as "Let's Regret This in Advance" (as in a romantic fling) had she continued in the standard folk vein. She positively romped up and down the keyboard during "Philanthropy," a song that jumbled the languages of love and economics. Werner cracked to the audience that harkening back to the early 20th century was a smart career move: Her competition is dead. But not if you consider how Norah Jones reinvigorated the pop-vocal marketplace, so that now everybody including Rod Stewart sees fit to wheeze through the standards and give Sinatra and Ella a reason to roll over. Based on Friday's show, Werner deserves to help lead the 21st-century revival. She even had a deft rhyme for "Studs Terkel" ("winner's circle") in one of her songs about Chicago. The concert's setting helped Werner to connect. The audience of 150 or more was whisper quiet while seated around candlelit tables, sipping coffee and forking in the heavenly homemade pie. Now for Lennon: Werner's final song of the night was a departure - a cover, rather than one of her own - and delivered the knockout punch. It was Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over." The song's familiar rock beat was loosened into a dramatic, fluttering piano ballad - a time warp that united the eras of Porter, Lennon and Werner. If she can tinker with a Beatle and make the song sound the better for it, then Werner really is on to something. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V9 #7 ***************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message