Sara Thompson has been on a roll since she started her public singing career earlier this year. A natural blues and R&B chanteuse raised in a musical family, Thompson covered a wide range of material last night. Smoken’ Joes’s BBQ in Boston was a natural fit, with its colorful, intimate room providing the right vibe. A commanding presence, statuesque and tall, Thompson is a very watchable front person.
Thompson opened with “Rock Me Baby,” her guest guitarist that evening, Craig Jones, shadowing her, with his melodic phrase staying a polite half pace behind. This made Thompson sound close to epic, her voice breathing and resonating inside the space between lead guitar and vocals. Thompson can certainly pick the right people to back her up. Jones plays a mean guitar with edge and fire.
For the second number, “Love Me Like A Man,” Thompson called her father, Mark Thompson, and his harmonica to the stage. She wen easy into this tune, letting her silky alto gently ride the range. Her dad’s harp played out with an earthy timbre, not too high, not too low, his interval of notes swiveling around sweetly. Thompson smoothly projected, controlled her strong belts, punctuated the song in sync with her rhythm section.
“Gimme One Reason” found her alto getting more hip, forceful, but with the same graceful smoothness in her first two numbers. Thompson got mellow on “Angel From Montgomery” and she became a throaty belter, albeit a smooth one, for “Let’s Get It On,” a tune impacted by Jones’s pedal effects wah-wah guitar. His axe cries out the joyful notes. Vocally, Thompson projected a lot of soul and a lot of power.
Jones kept shining all night on guitar, letting those sharp elegant phrases drop, playing with sophistication and control of tones. He’s the kind of musician you could listen to for hours to see what he’ll come up with next.
The rhythm section of drummer Danny Banks and bass player Greg Silva gave a nice steady bop to “Got My Mojo Working.” The guitar and harp worked together to make that blues train effect. Jones played a vintage style guitar solo here, keeping it sweet and elegant. Silva made his notes knobbier as the song grew more intense. The band got itself a good inner call and response going on.
Revved up and funky, they started the second set with “Chain Of Fools.” Thompson made her voice swivel around the groove, hitting the emotional and musical bulls eye. Jones was a big help, cranking out sharp, tasty phrases with edge and verve. Jones then guided the band into Robert Johnson’s “Come On Into My Kitchen,” sliding in with some slippery notes. Thompson too rocked the blues classic, baring her soul as she pulled the emotional fiber up from the depths of this song.
Thompson and Banks traded places on “Walkin’ The Dog,” Banks taking to the front microphone, Thompson playing drums. Banks had a boyish voice that could lend itself well to pop-rock, but he sounded too cute for blues and R&B. Silva took over the vocal chores for the Muddy Waters’ classic “I Just Want To Make Love To You” and a Ted Nugent song called “Got To Live It Up.” Silva wasn’t afraid to rock the mic even though he was a low key presence for most of show, letting his bass guitar skills do the talking for him. Thompson resumed her vocal chores on “Some Kind Of Wonderful” which was noted for how she eventually rode her range up high like a gospel singer.
Thompson and crew were appropriately funky on “Shaky Ground” with Jones’s greasy guitar spikes firing off inside of funk riffs. Silva picked knobby notes with his thumb, getting melodic during a clever interlude. Thompson got emotionally deep, rangy, and powerful on “It’s Hurts So Bad.” Just when you may have thought you saw the full extent of her depth, Thompson closed out her second set with a classy rendition of “At Last,” massaging the words with fullness and tenderness.
Thompson sang the Ike and Tina Turner version of “Proud Mary” with a gentle intro turning into a full sounding, up tempo rocker. Her initial vocal approach featured her sweet, wide timbre shadowed by Silva’s deeper baritone backing vocal. Contrasting dynamics showed how gracefully Thompson could switch from soft feminine voice to tough mama throaty belt. Jones sang lead vocals on blues number “Garbage Man’ with his guitar getting deep into the frustration of the lyrics while the rhythm section created a wide, heavy backdrop with dollops of knobby grooves. The trio of players moved into a bluesy instrumental jam with Jones adding a lot of flash within the context of his fine technique, his guitar sounding almost like it was singing out. Silva, it should be noted, controlled the twists and turns of “Sign, Sealed, Delivered” when Thompson went back to the microphone to close out the night. She actually closed out with the disco song “I Will Survive,” seeming less comfortable, likely because her microphone quit on her, forcing her to grab Silva’s mic to finish. It was her only weak moment of the evening. Thompson is an impressive, entertaining singer.
www.sarathompson.net
www.smokenjoesbbq.com
