Marshall Crenshaw, Club Helsinki
[GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., May 6, 2000)
A small corner of the “new-wave” of the early-‘80s welcomed Crenshaw’s
retro-pop stylings. With early hits like “Cynical Girl” and “Someday
Someway,” both of which came out of the Beatles’s Buddy Holly playbook and
both of which he performed at Club Helsinki in a solo acoustic show on
Thursday night, he was pegged as an American Elvis Costello.
For a brief time he seemed destined for a bit of Holly-style pop stardom,
appearing in films (“Peggy Sue Got Married” and “La Bamba,” in which he
played Buddy Holly) and hit videos, before the fickle realities of the pop
marketplace landed him in Woodstock, N.Y., that refuge of once-bitten,
twice-shy rockers, and recording for small, independent record labels that
lacked the commercial muscle of the majors on which he began his ascent to
stardom.
It was in this context that Crenshaw came to Helsinki to perform a set of
his carefully crafted pop tunes for an audience that apparently included
several fervent devotees as well as others perhaps merely curious to rub
elbows with a former star in the intimate, chummy quarters of the Berkshires
’ hottest, hippest music hangout.
It was also perhaps this context that accounted for a sense that Crenshaw
wasn’t entirely comfortable in the role of solo singer-songwriter performing
coffeehouse-style. The format calls upon a performer to establish a personal
rapport with the audience as much as it calls on him to deliver the musical
goods. Crenshaw delivered the latter just splendidly. A deft guitarist, he
accompanied himself with rich chords drenched in reverb, slightly suggestive
of full-blown, British Invasion-style pop arrangements. While his voice has
lost some range at the upper registers, his straining to reach these notes
only added a sense of poignancy and vulnerability to his material, most all
of which consists of songs about love and loss and regret.
Still, one got the sense that Crenshaw was somehow hiding behind his songs,
using them as a buffer between himself and his audience, to keep his fans at
a slight remove, not to let them get too close. There was a perfunctory
quality to his set and his repartee. Crenshaw remained glued to his seat and
nearly hidden beneath the bill of his army-style cap, and he was more remote
jukebox than living, breathing artist, phoning in his songs from a distant
place rather than singing them in the moment.
In addition to his own songs, Crenshaw peppered his set with a few cover
tunes that underlined his penchant for quirky, occasionally even morbid
themes. He dug out “Endless Sleep,” of the teen-tragedy genre, a top 10 hit
for Jody Reynolds, a kind of cut-rate Buddy Holly, in 1958. A number by
Harry Nilsson and Burt Bacharach’s “My Little Red Book” further
contextualized Crenshaw as a brooding, pop recluse.
Contrast Crenshaw’s performance with that of opener Robby Baier. One of
Berkshire’s own, Baier -- who now regularly performs in Boston and New York
on his way to certain stardom – just continually improves by leaps and
bounds as a performer. He is an impassioned singer, throwing himself fully
into the drama of his original material as if he’s singing his songs for the
very first time.
Baier’s songs are drenched in slow soul and funk grooves, and he is a
hypnotic, energetic balladeer, with even a touch of Van Morrison-ish
gospel-rock in his approach.
Even such a simple difference as the fact that Baier stood and played,
whereas Crenshaw sat down for his entire set, seemed to make a world of
difference. By standing and singing, Baier seemed always on the verge of
toppling over. That, plus his artful use of pauses and silences, built the
sort of tension that had listeners on the edge of their seats throughout his
set.
[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on May 8, 2000.
Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy rogovoy@berkshire.net music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
Next Article || Previous Article || Back
      |
