Location: Postojna, Predjamski Grad
Concert date: 21.02.2008
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: 13,00€
Thursday’s Postojna adventure with American blues-rock warrior Gail Muldrow was already the sixth gig of the fourth season of the Postojna Blues Festival. Los Angeles-born Gail was more or less a stranger to most music nuts at the foot of the Alps, myself included, until the other night. Still, she carved out her place in the world encyclopedia of music ages ago, mostly thanks to her expressive energy and genre flexibility. That’s backed by guitar playing that’s fairly conventional but always natural, and therefore more than satisfying, and crossed with a one-of-a-kind voice that has Gail often compared to the likes of Etta James or Aretha Franklin. “Sister” Gail (the nickname stuck after she played on a Sly Stone record way back in 1975) is definitely more than just a great interpreter of her far more famous colleagues. With a clear vision and a remarkable knack for fusing different genre elements into a musical language all her own, Gail Muldrow shows up today as one of the most innovative, and also most active, artists across the vast territories on the other side of the pond.
The evening spent in the company of a high-spirited Gail Muldrow turned out to be yet another in a remarkable run of well-spent Thursday musical outings in Postojna. This time, the mostly traditional blues-oriented revelry, often spiced with flavors of jazz, soul and gospel, got its variety enriched by the hard-hitting, at moments almost hard-rock rhetoric of an energetic guitarist. Besides drawing heavily on the treasure chest of bluesy motifs, she loves to steer into funky waters too. And that’s exactly the charm of Gail Muldrow’s message. A gal, or rather a woman of big-caliber character, makes the most of the possibilities that cross her path as she shamelessly indulges in the gifts of blues and funk, and that’s naturally what the power and breadth of her own expression is built on. The key role in showing off that expressive excellence goes first and foremost to the singer’s raspy voice, which Gail uses to quickly and effectively tame even the most demanding vocal lines. In sincerely showing emotion, she likes to lean on rough verbal exchanges. Hidden on the other side, in complete contrast to the bristling mouthiness, her recurring vocal acrobatics reveal an incredible softness that, in the spiciest moments, alongside super-sensual guitar playing, often smells strongly of Cray’s melancholic touches.
Despite the wide expressive spectrum, from the first beats of the onslaught Gail made it plain that deep down she’s above all a child of the rock & roll generation. Dressed in simple, black, anything-but-provocative clothes, she dribbled right past the Postojna crowd from the start with the bombastic pair Got My Mind Back and Loose Lips, a monstrous package of blues-rock rippers fired up by electrified slide playing, where old friend of Slovenian stages Tiziano Galli immediately let it all out too. For the excellent guitarist, after the recent visit by Sonny Rhodes, this was undoubtedly a new experience, a real endurance test, which our Italian friend (his impersonation of a Hollywood showman puts a smile on my face every single time) passed with flying colors. Gail had no intention of hiding her aims and immediately stripped the guitarist of any compromises, and young Tiziano repaid the favor with brilliant hard-rocking guitar playing. There was no room for a lighter instrumental interlude this time, not even between the blues gems I’ve Been Loving You and I For Trouble. For the impulsive broadcasting of funky vibes, Gail assigned the evergreen Play That Funky Music, naturally adapted to the wavelength of extremely sharpened rock frames, which just as naturally won the crowd’s biggest approval. Peace Of Mind also came off nicely, though maybe played with a bit too much enthusiasm, and together with that old Wild Cherry classic it marked a peak of sorts for the first half of the night.
The second half caught Gail’s crew, you could say, on the wrong foot. Rude as it sounds, it’s true: to get back to “old form,” the band sacrificed the opening pair of songs, Not Fade Away and above all the scatterbrained Shakey Ground, which made the whole thing dangerously resemble the uncontrolled rattling of a quartet of randomly rounded-up cabbage stompers. Funny enough, even plenty of glances and winks were no match for the general mix-up that ruled the stage of the Predjama castle at that moment. Amusing moments, sure, but Gail clearly sees music as more than just an economical means for steadily stomping a beloved vegetable. The magical aromas of home cooking failed to seduce her, quite the opposite. In fact, as the night neared its end, the situation on stage got hotter and hotter. I Gotta Love Me once again showed off the exceptional communication between Muldrow and Tiziano. The symbiosis of two outstanding musicians no longer surprised in the closing stretch of the gig, unlike the supernatural vocal range of Miss Gail Muldrow. Apparently the singer picked one exact moment to show off her vocal might. With I Get High On You we could finally be convinced of the greatness of her vocal spectrum, which hops with incredible depth, ease and freshness between even the most contrasting moods, from southern rock and blues all the way to flirting with the balmy softness of soul. The grand finale, whose arrival you could sense in the general euphoria left behind in an impenetrable curtain of dust and stone by the once again fantastically sawed-off Road Tested, Dope Smokin’ Blues and above all Never Enough, had Gail Muldrow, by the end of the show, standing shoulder to shoulder with the greatest guitar masters of blues and rock. Admittedly nothing earth-shatteringly new, but still worth seeing more than once.
Words: Daniel Pavlica
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1.Got My Mind Back 2.Loose Lips 3.Love & Happyness 4.I’ve Been Loving You 5.Peace Of Mind 6.Love Sickness 7.Play That Funky Music 8.I For Trouble 9.Wake Up Call 10.Not Fade Away 11.Shakey Ground 12.Road Tested 13.I Gotta Love Me 14.I Get High On You 15.Yes We Can 16.Dope Shokin’ Blues 17.Never Enough 18.Cross My Heart —encore— 19.Rock Me 20.Drink Some Wine 21.Get On The Boogie Train
Photo gallery
