"I always seem to be saying either please or sorry", Trixie Whitley claimed late in her set at Rockwood Music Hall, Saturday night, to a buzzing room who must have wondered what the blues singer was sorry for exactly..
The set had been a crowd pleasing wonder of the new and the old, where Trixie went from channeling Janis Joplin to Patti Smith, from blues pianist with classical leanings to lead singer behind a hard rock art band. The music was excellent, Trixie a little on the nervous side. Once she settled into a song, she was fine, but getting there could be a little painful.
Trixie is the late great blues guitarist Chris Whitley's daughter, and with her close cropped blonde hair, ice maiden complexion, and awkward persona, she looks like she should be dating Timothy Hutton in "Ordinary People. and though 24 years old, there is something young and shy about her.Not true when making music. Trixie has released two EPs, Live At Rockwood and The Engine and both are original keyboard based blues. Entirely credible, superbly sung and for all the strengths, she plays "Breathe You In My Dreams" Saturday night, and it sounds even better than the record.
With a debut album recorded and on the horizon, and an upcoming gig at Bonarro, Whitley's at Rockwood for what amounts to a dress rehearsal and while there should be a certain comfort level , she is playing with her band for the first time, many songs to an audience for the first time. There isn't. Rockwood 2 (the big one!) stage is taken up by a piano, Trixie plays three songs on it, but when her guitarist and drummer join her, it it is cramped and cluttered, a temperamental guitar keeps going out of tune. "I've been blue all day," she says. "Blue is a fascinating color…" All stage craft is performance art and Trixie gives the performance of a woman with social skill problems: too diffident, a little depressed. "Off the stage I am always laughing but once I start writing…"
Whens Trixie writes, she is the white woman who is bluer than blue. On her two EPs, the deep atmospheric sound of mentor Daniel Lanois (she records with the man who brought us her father in the band Black Dub) adds to the haunted mood. Dub being an accurate concept given her husky voice, incongruous coming out of this waif like visage. She might well be cheerful elsewhere but on stage there is a rumbly intensity to even the slightest comment which only adds to the mood of the entire set. When Trixie sings, it's like she is speaking in tune and when she goes for it, when she improvises on the smashing belter that ends the set ""Strong Blood", she can't sit still behind the piano, and there is nothing girlie left in her: it is so intense, so moody and beautiful, I think the house was a little stunned and if you had only heard the recorded version it is easy to see why. Trixie has made a giant leap forward in the past year, this is a whole other level of singing. This is self-immolation brilliance, scatting spitting, stirring up spirits.
Trixie dedicated "Strong Blood" to her father, and also her drummer Yuval Lion and guitarist Jeff Taylor on stage with her. When Trixie straps on her guitar and plays with the other two members of the band, she changes from intense blues girl, to art damaged rock star. Trixie is a better pianist than guitarist, no doubt but given her professed connection with the band, the three didn't really click on stage. I think they need more time together especially because, as she explained, Trixie essentially recorded the eagerly anticipated debut album with just her producer and a drum machine. But the songs stuck with you like glue, from the available to download on her website "A Thousand Trees" to a personal best power surge "Gradual Return", she turns a Gothic ferocity into a pop song wannabe. "Gradual Return" has one foot in blues and one foot in jam and a tremendous melody. "Silent Rebel 2" is another direction for the wanderlust Whitley, she could have sang/spoke it in 1977 CBGBs, no questions asked.
I'd like to see the trio on a larger stage and with more gigs under their belt, but I was very impressed with what I saw. As she moved from piano to guitar, Trixie seemed to go through a change, and while a lone person at a piano has one vibe, a three piece blues band has something else again. Plus, it isn't quite blues: there is a place where new wave, art rock, spoken word and the blues meet in her vocals. Her range isn't wide but it is very, very powerful within its perimeters. And every song I've heard of hers is excellent. She is a really, really good songwriter.
Trixie is simultaneously powerful and powerfully different. She is delicate and diffident, shy and a little sad, a character out of a Jane Austin novel who finds herself in the middle of "On The Road": Half Belgium, she seems like an exile on the stage until she starts playing. "I hope I didn't fuck up your Saturday," Trixie says. Let's see, three great songs and a handful of real good ones, an intense cathartic musical experience, the opportunity to see Chris' kid and Dan's niece in a small club, and another album to eagerly anticipate. Not fucked up my Saturday night but made it.
Grade: B+