When he wasn’t talking, B.B. King, who was headlining his own tour at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden, played tunes that have been lodged in his sets for quite a while and were worn but deep.y BEN RATLIFF
“I got to tell you one more,” B. B. King said from the stage on Tuesday night, “and then I’m going to work.” And he spun another story about how he secretly loves the way beautiful young women pat old men on the head, and how he never saw an electric light bulb until he was 16, or how bringing a pile of paper money back home to your sweetheart isn’t as effective as it used to be.
Al Green performing at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden.
He pantomimed. He rucked up his shoulders so they nearly touched his ears, like a kid confronted with a perfect birthday present; he covered his face with one hand, opening a peek hole between two fingers; crossed his arms over his chest in ecstasy; made bug eyes in mock surprise; squinted at his sidemen in mock suspicion.
Mr. King was headlining his own tour, the B. B. King Blues Festival, which made a local stop at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden (formerly known as the Theater at Madison Square Garden). So it’s his party, but he makes a lot more of these in-between monologues than the average concertgoer might want. Maybe it’s just that he knows his physical limits. (It’s no joke to be 81, with diabetes and one-nighters scheduled into the foreseeable future.)
Anyway, he copped to it. “The papers will kill me tomorrow,” he said. “They’ll say ‘Old B. B. was pretty good, but he talked all night.’ ”
When he wasn’t talking, he played tunes that have been lodged in his sets for quite a while: “Key to the Highway,” “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “Nobody Loves Me but My Mother.” They were worn but deep, as was the humor. (He told a story about a plow mule. How many mule stories have you heard a famous performer tell lately?) And a lot of jokes and stories can render his guitar playing more precious in small doses. As soon as he took his seat in front of his eight-piece band, he made his instrument roar.
The first meaty thunderclap from Lucille, his matte-black guitar, is always rougher than you expect from a man who prides himself on family-friendly entertainment. (Blue jokes were coded: Sex was “supper.”) Then, not to be too easily defined, he scaled his sound down quickly into delicate lines, each note beautifully formed. Between ideas were vocal-sounding guitar interjections: a wolf whistle, a throat clearing, a shout. Or sometimes he let go of his instrument altogether. Mr. King is still a powerful singer, with a voice much like his guitar: rough and toothy, then suddenly soft.
Etta James was to be on the tour but canceled two weeks ago; she is recovering from complications after abdominal surgery. This left more time to the third performer on the bill, Al Green: about an hour and a quarter of magnificence.
In a tuxedo with cummerbund, gold star of David hanging from his necklace, and chewing gum, the Rev. Al Green spent the first 10 minutes laughing, singing a few newer songs, and delivering red roses to the audience. Then, with two synchronized male dancers working around him, he began a row of hits from the early 1970s: “Let’s Get Married,” “Let’s Stay Together,” “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” “Tired of Being Alone.”
His remarkable delivery and stagecraft seemed to work against the idea of a focused performance. Singing, he floated forward on non sequiturs and half-phrases. Sometimes he stepped three feet away from the microphone and stand, moving a little to the left or right, aiming his strong voice at a wider target around it, letting his cackles and falsetto cries work like darts or subside into the music.
Somewhere in the middle, after making a flirtatious show of turning his back and zipping up his trousers, he put on an in-all-seriousness face. “This is the Theater at Madison,” he said. “We don’t want to show out, now. But we come from the Apollo, Apollo days, you know. Listen, let’s go back to the very beginning. A-ah-ha-may...” While the band and the backup singers played “Amazing Grace,” he had a conversation with the song:
...zing...
grace how swee... Me too, I was there too.
Come on.
What happened?
And what?
Was blind, totally blind...
Listen:
I see.
Ah yes, that’s alright.
Girls?
His two backup singers — one was his daughter, Deborah Green — carried on the work for him. When he re-entered, he was screaming, thundering, a full reversal from the shaded, talky singing he’s known for. It was almost frightening. At the end he let his right arm fall slack, and the band shut down completely.
No comments:
Post a Comment