My goal is to see one show per week. Yes, I might be that annoying friend that just has to tell you about the thing you missed, but I’m also catching every great show in the city of Chicago–with plenty more ahead of me. Welcome to the Chicago Concert Dispatch.
At the time of this show, it is 13 weeks into the year and I have seen 63 shows.
Cat Clyde looked out at us with sad soulful eyes as she sang, “You don’t need me anymore.” Her guitar thrummed deeply and her voice did loops. She used a full country register that climbed and then dug deep so quickly it gave you that knee-sinking feeling trying to keep up. She brought a unique style to her lyrical storytelling. Quick phrasing alternated with drawn out lines as she chewed on the words, getting everything she could out of each delicious syllable. The highlight of the set was “So Heavy,” as she caught hold of our hips by plucking out a delicate Latin jazz rhythm. Lightly singing, “Am I a fool; has my hope been in vain?” but then snarled “So heavy, too heavy to hold” at the chorus and switched to power chords played with abandon. Clyde traded back and forth between jazz and rock, and then, as the tension between the styles reached a peak, she rattled off a long string of lyrics so fast Sondheim would have been impressed. The audience hooted and hollered. It was amazing to feel them fully with her as they had tended towards low level chatter. It was a turnaround all openers hope to achieve.
“It’s great when people come together–like you folks have tonight–for stories and songs.”
J.S. Ondara called himself a “song-and-dance” man, but he clearly knows how important the story is in folk music. He was relaxed and funny and warm as he told us about his life. He showed our commonality even though his accent and stories of growing up in Nairobi seemed to set him apart from his mostly white American audience. He told us how he connected to American music growing up and of his journey to (the very cold) Minneapolis. Finding his voice and learning guitar. It’s hard to believe he had been playing guitar for only four years; Ondara made it look so easy, so natural. His vocals had expansive reverb, giving them what felt like the right magnitude, like we were in a large sacred space. I could hear notes of American influences in his music–the Dylan whine, the Nirvana mumble, and the Guns N’ Roses wail–but his register climbed into a piercing falsetto unlike anything in the west. It is this mixture that makes Ondara’s music as unique as his story.
He started the set with “American Dream;” it was a long improvised meditation on the song as I knew it from the album, taking it places unfamiliar and beautiful. He played through his whole Tales of America album, which is a necessity for a new artist, but lucky for us. It’s a masterpiece of an album, and every song on it is a song I would have wanted him to play.
He did play one cover for us, and of course there was a story behind it. He was listening to American music on the radio long before he knew any English. As a seven year old, he felt a deep connection to a hit by a Seattle grunge band. So much so, that when his cousins decided to give him some alcohol as a joke, he began to jump around and sing that song. Even though he sang nonsense words, his family recognized Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” They say that was the first time he sang for a group, and it revealed to him a feeling he didn’t want to give up.
So, he hasn’t stopped since.
As he played the cover for us, Ondara (unsurprisingly) brought something completely new to the song. The way he roughly strummed the guitar, making it percussive and moving in a way that he almost seemed to fall into the music brought a depth of abandon he had not brought to his own material. It was really, truly moving to watch. He ended with, very appropriately, “Saying Goodbye,” encouraging and leading us all in singing along with him. It was a perfect way to end a night of folk music.
Cat Clyde Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
J.S. Ondara Official | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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