the fourth of july was a beautiful sunday afternoon and evening, a perfect day for outdoor fun and music.
the city of louisville threw a party and staged a celebration of music and fireworks on the banks of the ohio river, in the heart of downtown at waterfront park.
i went down mainly to experience the magic of bettye lavette, the latest in a long line of artist’s termed an “overnight success,” even though that “overnight” equals 40+ years of hard work on ms. lavette’s part. recently, she began receiving a lot of notice for her stunning peformance of “a change is gonna come” at president obama’s inauguration and her incredible cover of “love reign o’er me” honoring the who at the kennedy center last year, both in front of nationwide, prime-time TV audiences. incidentally, the who cover was the the inspiration for her latest release, “interpretations: the british songbook,” all wonderful covers from influential british rock acts (clapton, sir elton, harrison, pink floyd, mccartney, and others).
this attention is well deserved and far too late.
this was my first opportunity to see the incomparable ms. bettye lavette live, and it was a wonderful experience to witness. she sang and stalked the stage like a woman posessed and her deep, rich and soulful voice owned the 25 acres of waterfront lawn and the thousands of people sitting, standing and lying there in the scorching mid afternoon sun.
while she was the musical opener for the evening in billing, she took control and was the headliner in spirit, voice and song.
more about bettye @: http://www.bettyelavette.com
the evening was closed out by michael franti & spearhead, this was also my first time seeing them and they too were quite impressive. a very positive, high energy band and a crack, tight group of players.
that said, while i appreciate their talents, they are a very good band, personally, i found their “jam band” mixed with reggae beat style a little boring after a few songs. to me, much of the music starts to blend together and sound the same. obviously based on the very energized, enthusiastic and large crowd (probably 2-3x the size when bettye played), largely there for franti, mine was the minority opinion, the crowd loved him.
i’m glad i got to see them and i enjoyed their set, but in all honesty, i haven’t felt compelled to pick up a cd and/or i doubt that i would make much of an effort them live again.
more info @: www.michaelfranti.com
more pictures @: http://picasaweb.google.com/bivester
what we need is music 