The Erinn Brown Band rocked The Back Page in Lowell last weekend

The Erinn Brown Band came to Lowell last Saturday night and they put on their usual high octane display of talent with good original songs and good original arrangements. They didn’t play too many songs from their upcoming CD because their guitarist at this Back Page show hasn’t played them yet.

Brown is a serious songwriter and her funk-soul-R&B influences are all permeated with a neo hippie relaxed vibe. Try to imagine Stax Records letting a bunch of hippie musicians into their 1960s sessions and then transporting through the Lilith Faire era.

EBB opened with “Sunrise Sunset” by Little Feat as guitarist Jay Aptt made his guitar sound like an organ. This rich texture of sound soon turned into serious lead guitar stuff, bending and sustaining notes, showing he’s a guitarist who can make it cry or sing. This backdrop allowed Brown to caress the ear with her smoky alto, a smooth as silk timbre that impressed with how easeful it remained at all kinds of dynamics and sustains.

Brown’s original tune “Time To Waste” from her 2008 release Don’t Forget About It found Aptt doing his organ sound thing on guitar, a flow of B3 like chords that were fun and groovy. “Time To Waste” travels along a mellow groove. A huge solo from Aptt made a lot of greasy notes slide around, landing in the right places, each one ringing out with immediacy. Brown’s voice got powerful here, belting out her chorus in a way that made it sound gospel-influenced in this song about depression.

EBB covered “Gimme One Good Reason” with a nice bumpy rhythm from drummer Steve Peabody and bassist Alison Keslow. Those two really locked into a groove, one that Brown and Aptt knew how to ride. The bass went down low and the drums used snare and high hat to make a hand-clap rhythmic smack, all funky and heavy, serious grooves that had true meaning in their depth.

“Love Is A Peace Of The World” is a Brown original in three sections. From it’s slow, steady build up to its easeful groove to its funky finale, the band scored a winner, making listeners feel like they’re being warmly carried along on its three part journey. Brown’s rhythm guitar playing has gotten so solid that fit’s the rhythm section like a glove, making for a thicker broth of groove, and Appt did some crying funk guitar notes over it.

EBB jumped into Brown’s arrangement of “Take Me To The River” by Al Green, played here uptempo, with Brown’s smoky vocal nailing its soulful intent. Aptt’s guitar whipped up some meaningful chords before turning up the heat by strengthening the melodic phrase into a mean, down and dirty style. Brown, a rangy vocalist, rose from a cooing vocal to a full-throated finale.

Brown’s original “Cool Summer Rain” found Aptt’s guitar filling in the choir feel of the melody while Brown did her vocal magic, holding notes while filling them with her wide, vibrant timbre. She can do a lot of vocal voodoo with her informed sense of dynamics, colors and tones, putting subtle shifts in the sound and feel that made these songs, mostly Brown originals, fulsome and vibrant. Brown has brains to spare. She graduated from a voice conservatory in Virginia before getting a degree at Berklee College Of Music.

EBB went into Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” with Aptt’s organ pedal subbing for Wonder’s funky keyboard rhythms. “Angel From Montgomery” was Brown’s fifth or sixth interpretation of the John Prine tune, and she amazes how she continues to breathe new life into this bar band cliché.

Keslow bumped up Brown’s “And In The End” with a thrusting knobbiness and Brown gently emoted at the microphone, sliding her vocal notes around with an easeful grace. Her “Dig Out The Pain” featured Aptt playing some glorious high notes in the melodic phrase he was pressing out. Brown emoted over it all with a honky tonk drawl that emphasized her world weary approach to songwriting.

Brown’s slow song “Toward The Sun” from her 1999 album Road Signs To The Sun abounds with emotive qualities. Her smoky West Virginian accent pulled the emotion out of her lyrics about having to leave someone who has cultivated her growth as a human being. Aptt fired off some incisive lead in a way that made the audience feel what the song was about.

The band had four vocal microphones set up and the four part harmony did add a little vocal texture here and there. However, Brown’s microphone was much louder, so the other three voices were only briefly audible here and there, when you really listened for them. This was most apparent when the band performed Brown’s “Eye For An Eye,” though Aptt kept things interesting with a guitar lead that cut its way forward while Brown belted like a mutha.

EBB had fun with classics “Down By The River,” “Use Me,” and “Seven Nation Army,” cover tunes that Brown has rearranged or in the case of The White Stripes tune, altered another artists arrangement. It is amazing how musical ideas keep rushing into Brown’s brain, arrangements of classics as well as ideas for new songs. Her own tune “Ruled My Life” from the next CD was mixed in with these covers, and it was a rocking number that explored the band’s heavier sound elements, especially when Aptt fired off another of his meaningful interpretations of Brown’s melody.

Brown’s original tune “Apartment Blues” found Aptt playing it in the 12 bar format to give it a compact ordering of the melodic phrase. This kept things tight and edgy. The band eventually closed out with an exciting burst of energy on a cover of “Give Me Shelter.”

The Erinn Brown Band is a musical quartet with no limitations. They have the high caliber talent to do anything with Brown’s original music and the flexibility to run with Brown’s interesting interpretations of the classics. Marketing may be their only challenge as Brown as been unappreciated and under noticed for far too long.

www.erinnbrown.com

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