It was the third time I was seeing Jenny O. on Saturday night at the Make Music Pasadena festival, and her songs are better and better every time I listen to them. With her backing band including singer songwriter Charlie Wadhams on drums, Benji Lysaght (Ambulance LTD) on guitar and Jake Blanton (the Sweet Hurt) on bass, her sweet, tender voice over the familiar-sounding guitar chords were so easy to like the public needed no time to get use to her music, although visibly many were already big fans.
What I had noticed right away was her amazing range, since none of her songs sounded like the next one, from the funky side of ‘Good Love’ with which she opened the show, to the retro, funky-cabaret-piano melody of ‘O get some sugar’, she has the potential to break big some day, especially with her slightly bluesy hit ‘Well OK Honey’ and its infectiously irresistible bass line, a song which definitively engaged the people in the crowd into some clapping.
She performed all her songs on guitar whereas, during her previous shows, she had sometimes used piano for ‘Home’, which sounds just a little bit like a certain Sara Bareilles’ song, without the presumptuousness in the delivery.
The unassuming presence of Jenny O. was refreshing and whatever she sang, happy or sad tunes, her songs were carried by her clear voice singing the always-distinct lyrics.
In her music, there was a little bit of folk, jazz, blues and of course 60s pop, and a constant subjacent melancholy, beautifully served by her vocals. It was pretty but never precious, honest and altogether, some beautifully crafted songwriting, almost old-fashioned in a certain way, as she explained in an interview:‘The prettier songs come out on the piano, but the fun songs are always on the guitar. I’ve been recording myself for a long time, but I made a decision a long time ago to focus on songwriting and not so much the engineering aspect of it. I don’t even know how to use effects.’
Listen to this upbeat song, it has almost something of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ going on: