Tedeschi earns Sweet Forgiveness

Tedeschi earns Sweet Forgiveness
June 27, 2009
By Gwenn Friss
Cape Cod Times

HYANNIS – Susan Tedeschi says last year’s “Back to the River” album was pivotal for her because it blended her trademark blues with “a lot of other stuff.” From the complex guitar licks on the title song to the hauntingly beautiful “700 Houses,” the album is complex and brings together a lot of what the blues/jazz/rock musician has demonstrated over the years.

But she and her band started out a little tentative at the Cape Cod Melody Tent Friday night, with her fiddling with equipment knobs and glancing with raised inquiring eyebrows at her bandmates during the first couple of songs. No one sounded bad; they just didn’t open with that dynamic chemistry that makes a group more than the sum of its parts.

Fortunately, the music was soon flowing through them again, like a river with a strong current. Fueled by Ron Holloway’s impossibly sweet, high tenor saxophone and Tedeschi’s own guitar playing on “Butterfly,” the group of talented musicians settled into the soulful music for which they are known.

Massachusetts native Tedeschi was in fine, throaty she-cat voice. Her rendition of “It Hurt So Bad,” from the 1998 album, “Just Won’t Burn,” really brought out the sound of Janis Joplin, whom Tedeschi counts as one of her greatest influences. The usher was speaking to a lady in the fourth row who was dancing at her seat. It was surprising most of the crowd was not on their feet. Hips swaying in sad agony are entirely appropriate to this number.

Tedeschi’s voice was especially nice, also, on “Sweet Forgiveness,” which has those country music roots – or overtones, call them what you will – that show Tedeschi can belt in a voice of honey, as well as whiskey.

Tedeschi’s drummer, Tyler Greenwell, once said he sometimes finds the drum stool haunted by spirits of the greats who went before him. Friday night, those greats might have been drumming alongside as Greenwell positively tore up the drums in a percussive cycle that seemed to pull him into the set.

As with other great bands, Tedeschi’s group – rounded out by Matt Slocum on keyboards and Hammond B-3 Organ, Dave Yoke on guitar, and Ted Pecchio on bass guitar – are all terrific musicians individually. The arrangements do a nice job of showing that off but, as often is the case with the Tent and its rotating stage, the balance was off occasionally – instrumentals drowning out Tedeschi when she was facing the other side of the audience.

That was not the case with Shemekia Copeland, who opened for Tedeschi with a powerhouse voice that was stunning in range, control and volume. She did the painful “Ghetto Child” at the microphone, then walked around the stage singing it with no microphone. From gospel music to blues music (as in “I’m A Wild Woman, and You’re A Lucky Man,”) Copeland is compelling. She was billed as a special guest, and hearing Copeland and the musicians playing with her delivered two outstanding shows for the price of one.