For a few hours on Thursday night, the Avalon Theatre’s Stolz Listening Room felt like Nashville’s venerable Bluebird Café. Alaina Stacey and Madeleine Kelson, two singer/songwriters, childhood friends from Chicago now living and working in Nashville, brought a Bluebird-style “song swap” to the Avalon Theatre’s cozy Slotz Listening Room.
A “song swap” — songwriters taking turns sharing their songs — works best when the songs are compelling, and the performers share a musical style (but are not so similar that their songs blend together). That was certainly the case with Stacey and Kelson. They have both been writing songs since they were in High School (and before), and one of the joys of the concert was seeing how their songwriting has progressed. Their newest work is by far their strongest.
Stacey has a way of singing about unrequited love without being maudlin or weepy. She, for example, told the audience all about her first, high-school, love, someone who was never too interested in her: “I’m gonna get over you/I’m gonna say that we’re through/I’m going to go on my way/but not today.” The catchy I Would, begins memorably: “I don’t’ remember how it started/but it ended with your stuff in boxes.” I Would has all the makings of hit – powerful lyrics, a memorable chorus, and a strong vocal performance.
Some of Stacey’s songs were a bit more explicit about her mood, such as Love Me Like It’s Nothing (“It doesn’t have to be forever/call it whatever/take it night by night. If it’s you and me together/call it whatever/’long as it’s you and me tonight”) or her opener, Jonesing, about how much she longs for a certain guy. In the standout “If I Were a Song,” Stacey reaches out to an old lover, asking, “Would you put me back on/if I were a song?”
Stacey’s offerings were not all love songs. She sang about planning her own funeral (“Thank you for making my life/truly/a wild thing of beauty”), and about trying to protect a girl who she knew of only from a bit of graffiti in a club (“dangerous isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”). Take Care of The Baby is tearjerker about her (not much) younger brother, one of the loveliest songs I have heard about the bond between siblings (“Mama tried to separate us/but she always did underestimate us”).
Kelson’s rich, smokey voice brought a warm authority to many of her songs. Where the Spirit Meets the Muscle, the title of her latest EP (and perhaps a nod to Where the Spirit Means the Bone by one of her clearest influences, Lucinda Willaims) is a powerful example. “She loves me like I’m worth all of the trouble,” she sings, conveying a powerful bond with her fiancée . One of her newest songs, Pretty Wings, shows how much her songwriting has matured: “I was a kite/going wherever the wind blows/it felt like freedom/till I saw the rope.” It’s no wonder Kelson chose Pretty Wings for her entry into NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert competition.
Her take on the John Prine standard Angel from Montgomery highlighted the winning weariness that often seems to creep into Kelson’s own songs. That sweet, melancholy tone was also evident on Only One to Blame, which Kelson, rightly, introduced by saying, “this is the saddest of my many sad songs” and on Hard Wired (For Letting Go), about the challenge of making a life in music, being on the road, and missing home.
Kelson put down her guitar and moved to keyboards for a few songs, most memorably, Make You Proud, a complex and moving song about her mother and the various debts Kelson owes her (“Do you hold your breath, so that I can keep on breathing?”).
After an evening of songs that were on the sad end of the emotional spectrum, Kelson and Stacey encored by joining together on a song dating back to Kelson’s time singing with her sister (as The Kelson Twins), a light-hearted tune about a friend of theirs who refused to take no for answer from a guy, Honey Let That Poor Boy Be. It was the perfect way to end a great show.
The show at the Avalon was the last show of Kelson and Stacey’s joint tour. But it is a terrific time to explore their music. Kelson just released her latest EP, WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS THE MUSCLE, last month. In May, Stacey will release DAY, the middle of a trio of EP’s (DAWN, DAY, DUSK) which, she explains, “reflect different sonic and emotional moments in my life.”
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