GOTV ’08: Magnetic Vox

There are musicians who can carry a tune, musicians who can sing, musicians who can stoke a whole room with their vocals, and musicians who have such rich and powerful voices they draw everything else happening around them into their orbit. Mike Mattison belongs in the last category; that smoky croon and face-melting howl that helps turn every vintage blues and soul selection proffered by the Derek Trucks Band into some kind of magic. All told, however, the full scope of Mattison’s talent is better consumed in the context of Scrapomatic, the alternately intense and laid back soul group he fronts with Paul Olsen.

Mattison’s vocal contributions are only one part of DTB, which has always been long on technical ability and virtuosity but sometimes short on strong pacing—a DTB performance can feel like eating a box of Belgian chocolates for dinner: rich and tasty and amazingly flavorful, and then too rich and too tasty and catalyzing a stomach ache. But in Scrapomatic, Mattison’s in kick-back mode, playing ace soul and blues tunes (both urban- and rural-sounding) with a cozy guitar accompaniment and alternate bass and tuba parts to hold the bottom end. A brief set on the Solar Stage—some of the little side platform’s best attendance of the weekend—drew a few sharp guests into play (saxophonist Mace Hibbard, trombonist Kevin Hyde, and Yonrico Scott, whom Mattison introduced as Yonrico “Pretty Ricky” Scott), and closed with a laid-back run-through of the Rev. Gary Davis’ I Belong to the Band.