kbrown.ca

(from the beginning)

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(continued)

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The lady made her way to the stage, “You guys want to do anything in particular?” We all had favourites, she was gracious enough to offer.  “What do you feel like?”

“Anything you want, girl, we are here to serve.”

“Alright,” she ran her fingers through her short hair and grabbed a mic, “round the block and we’ll see where it takes us.”

My favourite.

It was a game we played.  Set up a place or a groove or a sound and see where it takes us.  Once we’ve got a thing, or maybe before, find some words that fit a melody that makes us say yeah, that’s what this is about.  Not freestyling lines that come to mind, that’s fine, but finer was to find scraps of what someone else had laid down in another time and make it fit this here and now.  Bind that with something you were laying down yourself and see what it makes.  It’s a gift to see the line from power to the people through delta blues back to old times.  And to be able to hook it all up to your day, that was part of Tony’s gift.  And that voice.

Folks were still like dancing so we’d stay up.  I took it, “D” loud enough for Waits to catch.  He’s got good ears, this bunch was all about listening.  I set a loping groove we could lay into for a while, open enough to step out of easily.  Killer cocked his ear, making sure of the space between before saying anything, head moved twice then dip to the right and in.  We set a luxurious stride, fit for a queen.  Autonomous collective be damned, sing it for us sister.

By the time we we were done we’d hit on some old R&B, I think that was Hank Snow, a couple of scraps of Noel Coward hung around a moment of Hothouse Flowers, couldn’t help but smile at the sound of four voices on Cohen’s Alleluia, a worldbeat thing that had words I swear came out of the old border ballads, one long song ain’t none of it sounded like this when it started, veered into Neil Young, then skipped off of if I had a hammer into war what is it good for.  Now say it again, absolutely.

Nothing.

And we stopped.

Tony hung on the mic, eyes closed, then dropped her hands and stood for a beat, still.  When she finally looked up you could tell she hadn’t been here for a while, and wasn’t really taking in any of this just yet.  The room was happy and letting us know, but we just looked at one another.  When it’s real it’s like coming out of hypnosis or something, you see everything fresh, but somehow at a distance.  It gets better, but that feeling never quite goes away.

“You got one more in you, Tony?” McShane was first back on his feet.  “Won’t get any higher tonight. something to take ‘em out and we’ll get Eveready to spin tunes for a while?”

“Yeah, alright.  Something slow.”

Blues was one place we hadn’t been tonight.  Could be freeword, could be classic.  Sounded like B-flat to me, Waits must’ve agreed ’cause he hit it first, one long note solid on the bottom with a little extra grind on the top, how he ever got that much change in tone without dialling or stomping on nothing is beyond me.  I hit the notes straight, no sugar, mallet roll from the cymbals and McShane’s guitar sounds off a riff that could turn into a long rolling line, but then hangs, waiting.  Tony steps up to the mic, tilts her head to catch the mix, then starts making a sound to fill up some of the space between.  It starts low, like catching a breath, fills out enough to make a note, then slides up, not yet a word just a sound, along the climb it shifts colour and somewhere along the line it turns into something that takes on meaning, dunno where exactly but that’s the moment you know something’s gonna be said, and it continues to lift out of the midrange and higher, still soft but with enough edge so you know she means it and then, once we’re all really there, lean on it just a little more.  My man hit the drums two and.  Bass joined him on three, I came along on four, figure to leave enough space for what’s gonna happen, whatever it is I’d like to be there.  Tony brings us on down, “And she says, I don’t know what it takes…”.

She rode us through hard times, no pity just what it is, don’t know where I’m supposed to be, but it sure can’t be here.  Line built on line, no solos just rolling back to the point of it all.  McShane hovered just out of ear, building tones under the voice, leaning in for a hit or a pull-through but mostly just adding weight to what the singer had to say.  I looked out at the room, wasn’t a word that wasn’t being said by the song.  We rolled through it again, worked it up higher.  Folks responded by moving.  I could make out faces, people I knew, Sparechange at one end of the bar nodding right on.  Some other woman I didn’t know stood a little further along the bar transfixed, this was hitting home.  We came around one more time, “One thing I know,” we hit it together, tight, and stopped. “You just got to believe!”

Two short notes and we hold the last chord.  The crowd is with us and start applauding before we cut the final note.  Then it’s over.  Killer and Waits both got a quiet smile going, McShane says thanks and gets the man to roll the tunes from the cabana.  Tony’s still hung out over the mic, folks are still clapping hard, I check out the bar and there’s Sparechange.  Nobody’s noticed, but that woman standing along the bar has passed out, buddy’s caught her and he’s looking at me with a definite “now what?”.  I motion towards the greenroom, Sparechange puts his arm around the woman like she’s his long lost buddy and walks her along to bar.  I rack my guitar, step off the stage and meet him at the door, “Some guys get all the luck.”

He walked her through the door and into the small backstage area we lovingly referred to as the greenroom. “No luck here.  No alcohol either, she was drinking water.  This has all the appearances of a genuine medical condition.”  He set her down gently at one end of the couch.

Jo poked her head into the room, “She alright?”

“Not sure,” I shrugged. “X maybe, though she doesn’t look the type.  Maybe we give it a minute and see whether we need medic?  She’s breathing fine.  Make sure you know where the phone is and if she stays down we’ll get you to bring the boys downtown?”

“Done,” she disappeared around the corner back to the bar.

The band all filed into the room, Tony was the first one to say anything sensible, “Any of you guys know how to take a pulse?”