Over the course of her terrific show at the Stoltz Listening Room, Christina Vane described herself as being “from everywhere” and “from nowhere.” Those two observations perfectly capture the uniqueness of her songs; while her lyrics and music both reflect a wide array of influences (the Mississippi Delta blues first and foremost) they also capture someone trying to find, or to create, a place for herself in an often-challenging world.
Born in Italy to a Sicilian-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Vane grew up between England, France, and Italy. After college in New Jersey and some hard years in Los Angeles, she has now begun to put down roots in Nashville (a cliche’ that Vane herself would probably be quick to make fun of).
Vane opened with Make Myself Me Again, the title song from her most recent album and a perfect song to introduce herself. With her powerful voice, and accompanied by her ringing guitar, Vane sings: “Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win/ I’m gonna make myself me again/ I’m giving up on giving in/ I’m gonna make myself me again.”
The heart of the show was a series of songs Vane wrote on her 2021 road trip from Los Angeles to Nashville. It was her first exposure to the American West, which made a powerful impression on the “woman from nowhere.” She told an interviewer that before the trip she “seldom wrote about anything besides human emotion and relationships” and that her trip “opened up my experiences to visions and sensations I had never seen or felt.” Badlands, her tribute to the “land of salt and dirt” was particularly moving. The juxtaposition of her guitar playing, which is deeply rooted in the rich soil of the American South, and her observations about the starkness of the Badlands was striking. Dreaming of Utah, a slow country waltz, was another highlight, with Vane singing “I’m pining for mountains of green/or of stone/for the silence that’s haunting/when you’re truly alone.”
Vane’s guitar playing is just as effective, and vivid, as her songwriting. Her primary guitar is a custom National Resonator, played with a bottleneck slide. (This is the guitar Paul Simon sang about on Graceland, “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.”) The guitar’s metal and wood construction gives a distinctive sound that is metallic and twangy, rich and resonant. None of that would matter if Vane was not a top-flight guitarist. But she is indeed a gifted player; the joy she brought to her short, smart, solos was infectious.
Vane offered up a quartet of new songs, one of which, No Roots, was performed live for the first time. She introduced another new song, Getting High in Hotel Rooms, joking that she was “a woman of mystery,” since no one could figure out what the song was about! It was indeed about hotel rooms, and about life on the road and persistence: “I’ll travel far and travel light/I can play the blues all night. I’m trying/Lord knows/ I’ll keep on drivin’.” My Mountain, played clawhammer style on the banjo, is something of a purpose statement for Vane: “I come to you with open hands/I learn your hands and I listen/you think know what I’m missing/but you haven’t seen my mountain.”
Another new song, You Ain’t’ Special, is Vane’s upcoming single. It is a fun, straight-forward country song (“You ain’t special/like your mama said you was”) with less echoes of the blues than her earlier songs. You can imagine, say, Miranda Lambert doing a great version.
Annapolis-based singer/songwriter Skribe did a short, compelling set to open the show, offering up four new, unreleased songs. Landlines and Love Letters was the highlight of his short set, recounting his recent, unsuccessful attempts at “the art of pursuit.”
The show in Easton was the second of a run that will take Vane across the country between now and September. (Dates are available at https://www.cristinavane.com/.) Keep an eye out for her.
Mark Pelavin, the founder of Hambleton Cove Consulting, is a writer, consultant and music lover living, very happily, in St. Michaels.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.