A “white chick” who gives the Blues a run for their money.

                                                  Photos by Russ Weatherford.

Metropolitan Room

By Joel Benjamin

There’s always an unspoken wariness when a pert, young white chick decides to offer a program of Blues songs.  No one need have worried with the fine Carole J. Bufford at the controls.  Out of this sweet looking face came a torrent of emotions and a musicality that was alternately subtle and lush, not to mention a wit that kept the song list from sinking into wrist-cutting gloom.   

Barely avoiding the suicidal was “Some of My Best Friends Are the Blues” (Woody Harris & Al Byron) with lines like “blues butter my bread in the morning.”  “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair” (George Brooks), a Bessie Smith number about a gleeful murderess, helped restore humor to the evening. 

Ms. Bufford carefully balanced classics with the lesser known, often stretching the term “blues” to its limits.  The Kurt Weill/Langston Hughes “Lonely House” is essentially an operatic aria, although its sentiments overlap those of the Blues.  The same with the iconic “Summertime” (Gershwin/Heyward) for which Ms. Bufford used the screechy Janis Joplin/Woodstock version, turning it into a wail.  “The Man that Got Away” (Arlen/Gershwin) is intimately associated with Judy Garland and singers have to approach it without fear to get through it.  Ms. Bufford did not disappoint.  Although she didn’t quite make the song her own, she caught the languorous longing of the words while easily hitting the ups and downs of the melody.

Another classic was “Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home” (Arlen/Mercer).  She had a wry smile as she sang, turning this into a triumph of her free-wheeling philosophy of life.  She took Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” (Dave Williams/James Faye Hall) and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (Otis Blackwell/Elvis Presley) taking them off the Rock and Roll shelf and firmly planting them on the Blues shelf.

Danny Gardner, a lanky dancer, joined her on stage for “Trouble In Mind” (Richard M. Jones) with a tap routine that charmed despite the lack of space.  Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” didn’t have the heft of his recording, but her encore, “House of the Rising Sun” had a gloomy gospel quality, sung with her head tossed back.

As she went from strength to strength, I kept wondering why this woman hasn’t had a Broadway show written for her, but that’s something for other, more influential professionals to ponder.

Her show was produced by the prolific Scott Siegel who has championed Ms. Bufford.   Ian Herman, her music director, supplied agile and witty arrangements for himself at the piano and Tom Hubbard on bass.

Carole J. Bufford (Thursdays, through June, 26th 2014)

Shades of Blue

Metropolitan Room

34 West 22^nd St.

New York, NY

Reservations:  212-206-0440 or www.metropolitanroom.com

More Information:  www.carolejbufford.com