Every year around the time of Mardi Gras, Louisiana musicians tend to hit the road. Besides bringing the festivities to their fans, it serves as an opportune time to remind people what makes Louisiana’s musical culture so special. It was certainly a factor in the co-headlining tour of Marcia Ball and Sonny Landreth, who passed through Portland, Oregon on Thursday, February 13th for a show at the Aladdin Theater. In Landreth’s case, he is also touring in support of his upcoming album Black Top Run, which is due out February 21st.
Accompanied by Dave Ranson on ukulele bass and Brian Brignac on cajón, Landreth would split his set into an acoustic and electric section. The unique instruments played by Ranson and Brignac complemented Landreth’s acoustic-ish slide guitar, starting with the aptly titled “Blues Attack” played fast and loose. Presented in this light, his playing felt even more raw and stripped down, with songs like “Key to the Highway” taking on a front porch-picking sound and “Black Top Run”, the title track from the upcoming album, taking on a rustic exuberance. Another cut off the new album, “Don’t Ask Me”, hit with a big wave of slide and percussive brush strokes before Landreth dropped it into a greasy blues gear as he showcased a balance of slide playing and complex acoustic picking. Before switching over to an electric setup, the trio closed out with the catchy and danceable Americana rocker “Creole Angel”.
Landreth and his band came in like a hurricane with their thunderous take on Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues” before slowing things down for the R&B smoker ”It Hurts Me Too” only to launch into yet another massive slide solo. With some of his favorite tunes checked off, Landreth got into his Cajun prog rock side with “The Milky Way Home”, a driving blues rocker with chunky bass lines that showcased some of Landreth’s finest finger picking of the night. “Brave New Girl” continued in a similarly proggy vein as Landreth conjured a sound of multiple guitars playing in harmony. This song morphed into a sprawling jam that found Landreth veering from a Mississippi Hill Country blues groove to Jimi Hendrix-like flare, all the while showing the audience why he is one of the best living guitarists – and possibly the best slide player – out there today.
Few acts can get you in the Mardi Gras spirit like Marcia Ball, and she did exactly that from the moment she hit the stage with “Let’s Have a Natural Ball”, an Albert King classic that might as well be her signature song with its pun on her name. From the vantage point of her piano stool, Ball radiated with the energy of someone hellbent on showing you a good time, from the boogie woogie warmth of “Red Beans Cooking” embellished with a feisty saxophone solo, to the swamp pop goodness of “Just Kiss Me” with a classy yet gritty blues guitar solo. Ball kept the party going with the flamboyant New Orleans piano tune “We Fell Hard”, the swinging rocker “Concrete Jungle”, and the smile-inducing title track off her most recent album Shine Bright. She tapped into her love of gospel with the lovely, feel-good tune “I Got To Find Somebody” before doling out “Take a Little Louisiana”. All of the songs in Ball’s set conveyed her love of the blues and the piano boogie of her home state. Her band also showed off some serious talent, dishing out one saxophone and guitar solo after another while the rhythm section stayed right in the pocket and never missed a beat.
What each performer brought to the table was a slice of Louisiana culture in the form of different approaches to the music. Landreth’s fervent and precise musicianship and Ball’s more laid back, le bon temps rouler boogie offered a contrast in blues music and that of the state as a whole. In Portland, this worked exceptionally well as both performers and their bands delighted the audience with one damn fine night of music.
