Daynas of Future Passed, and Upcoming Days to Ponder

[captainsblog]

We left off  before the Tuesday night Dayna Kurtz show actually began....



Her name's on that marquee! Really! You just can't see it in the photo!

After acquiring her CD and hearing Scott introduce her, she and sideman Robert Mache-






- yeah, them there and on that, she got into her almost two hours of songs and stories.  Other than Raise the Last Glass, these were all new to me except a cover or two. No matter: I was captivated, as was a near-full room.

Among them (Last Glass was one of her first to be played):

(Hallelujah I'm a) Dreamer, by a songwriter's songwriter named David Egan. I've found covers of it by Amy LaVere and Will Sexton in addition to Dayna singing it here.  A Louisiana fixture for years, his songs were covered by Joe Cocker, Percy Sledge, Bill Mumy (!),  and Maura O'Connell, among many others. He passed in 2016 of Fuck Cancer at the age of 62.  I'm feeling more blessed than ever about standing on the precipice of 63.  She honored and missed him with his words in her voice.

Right for Me, her own composition with the hook line that sunk me: I don’t think you’re right in the head, but I think you’re just right for me.

Then one of several from her Nawlins-based side project, Lulu and the Broadsides, A Grade, which she somehow intended as a John Prine song but really didn't come out that way.

Along similar lines to Last Glass was her simple singalong version of a revival hymn. She said she may be an atheist Jew, but she was in her high school production of Godspell so she's got that cred. What Did Jesus Say asks and answers that question with a simple set of choruses:

I’ve been reading on my bible
I’ve been reading on my bible
I’ve been reading on my bible
What did Jesus say?

He didn’t say nothing bout abortion....

Or bathrooms, or borders, and he probably didn't know any white people, but told people to love us anyway.

On to a Merle Haggard song- she said the best part of country songs is that the titles always tell you exactly what you're gonna get- and in this case it was a deep track from one of his albums that nobody ever covered until she did:  It's not love but it's not bad....

Most of her pieces were requests. One was the sultry almost mariachi sounds of Venezuela, about a woman who could not marry the man she loved.



(I don't think I've ever seen a guitarist work her strings like a keyboard, but while Robert worked the major magic on his own instrument, Dayna played along on hers.)

Love Gets In the Way, also on the CD I was gifted.

She tried to end her set on the banjo-



- but tuning proved futile, so her last number before the encore was another Louisiana legend of song named Bobby Charles. Most famous for giving his song "See You Later Alligator" to Bill Haley and the Comets, he recorded this one, "You'll Always Live Inside of Me," near the end of his career that ended with his passing in 2010:

 

Watch on YouTube

(That was not my concert.)

Would us old people get that encore? We would! And without lighting matches for five minutes! Robert and Dayna quickly headed back out and, after checking that the whole room pretty much was 55 and up and would recognize it, she closed with a rousing singalong of "Those Were the Days." Mary Hopkins, not Archie and Edith, thank gods.

She was out at the merch table when I left, as promised, but my day and her line were too long for thanks. Maybe someone will see this and pass it on to her, or I'm pretty sure we will be under the same roof again.

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And tomorrow night, another roof to be under with magical musical talent. Rochester welcomes home its latest entrant to the royalty of soul, Danielle Ponder. I never worked with her as a lawyer when she was with the Public Defender's office, but I've loved what she sings and how she sings it.  The show was just announced as a sellout, and this piece by an online friend of mine will help explain why. I will be going with friends there after another long planned workday on the road, and I'm hoping the stories will be just as strong as the songs.

It's feast time for all of this. I came home today and heard Eleanor playing a bunch of Steve Winwood. His daughter Lilly is playing yet another beloved Rochester venue tonight without me there, and many other things are coming along that make my heart sing even if I'm not in the crowd singing with it.