I don’t think there are a lot of people like Aaron Embry left in this world, people who put such a real emotion in a performance, people who dare to start a set with two a cappella covers in order to celebrate Memorial Day. I went to the Satellite for a free Memorial Monday show, and I could not stay till the end (there were 3 other bands playing!0 but I made sure to check out Aaron’s set, because he is always such a luminous performer. His personal music may not be well known, but he has been the touring pianist for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, has worked with legends like Willie Nelson or Emmylou Harris, has opened for Mumford and Sons, and has even toured with Elliott Smith during his ‘Figure 8’ time… this is actually how I first heard about Aaron, back in 2002, Elliott called him to get on stage, during a show at the Echo… Difficult to realize it was almost 13 years ago, because Aaron Embry has still this full child-like smile and juvenile appearance.
So he started with ‘The Fiddle and the Drum’ by Joni Mitchell and ‘Love Vigilantes’ by New Order, taking risks, looking for the lyrics at time, blowing a little in his harmonica, telling us these were two good Memorial Day songs, leaving us ponder a few seconds about the contradiction. He then played a few songs with an acoustic guitar and harmonica (‘Wanna Be King’, ’The Wheel’) in the real folkish tradition, sounding old-school in the best way of the term with his farm-aid look, long hair and red bandana.
Of course the harmonica and the delivery could make you think about a Dylan-esque folk tradition, but Aaron often sang like a young Willie Nelson or Aaron Neville, but as soon as he sat behind the piano, the ambiance changed a bit and his tonality was more Rufus Wainwright may be? But it would not be fair to compare his voice to others’, because his vocals have an entirely distinctive range, fragile and emotive. The constancy seemed to be the harmonica that he still used while playing on piano during ‘No Go’ off his ‘Tiny Prayers’ album, as the melodies were draining a lot of comforting melancholia, half way between folk, jazz, classical music and something else…. The emotion was real, the show was stripped down and there was a sort of fragility mixed with areal serenity escaping from all these melodious tunes. He covered another Joni Mitchell’s song (‘People’s Party’), told us that she is gonna be alright and I believed him.
With Aaron Embry, intimacy rhymes with humility and simplicity, the set was a short one but it brought such a nostalgic and cozy mood inside the Satellite, all wrapped inside an ambiance of old saloon. However, almost everyone was quiet, a very rare thing in such location,… he left us with ‘When All is Gone’, and I realized he was a fish hard to catch, as this was a bit countrish, a bit Americana, a bit folk, but not entirely anything of any of the above, but much more sophisticated, played on a muted tone by a soulful and thoughtful performer.