Local singer-songwriter Lori McKenna, shown at a summer concert in Washington, revisited the club that helped launch her career last night.
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Music review
2007 has been a very good year for Lori McKenna. The local singer/songwriter's album "Unglamorous" was released to widespread acclaim, and she managed the transition to a major label without succumbing to middle-of-the-road overkill (no small feat for someone whose songs have been covered by Faith Hill). That refusal to tamper with the strengths she's relied on for years brought her to Club Passim last night, where she began a four-night, six-show residency at the venue that nurtured her career.
It's been an annual pilgrimage for McKenna for several years, and with fellow singers Mark Erelli and Jake Armerding, she kicked things off as usual with an evening of covers. (The other shows, which run through Saturday, feature McKenna performing solo and with her band.) The format was one of equal time, with a strict rotation of Armerding performing a song, followed by Erelli and then McKenna.
The three made for an effective tag team. Armerding served as a freewheeling utility man, playing guitar, mandolin, and violin at various points throughout the evening. He seemed to have selected some of his songs without informing his compatriots as to what they would be.
Erelli, meanwhile, was more methodical, going so far as to keep a binder handy with the lyrics to his songs. In fact, his reaching R.E.M.'s "Fall On Me" was the others' cue to start winding down. But before he ran out, he offered a fine version of Paul Simon's "American Tune" and offered up a slow "Don't Dream It's Over" that grew almost devastatingly quiet on the final verse.
During Armerding's and Erelli's songs, McKenna would simply listen, her hands draped over her guitar, her head swaying and her eyes occasionally closed. But though the show was a joint effort, she was literally and figuratively the center of the show, and she put her piercing bluegrass warble to excellent use on material by Peter Gabriel, Miranda Lambert, and Steve Earle.
Together, the three had the casual comfort of old friends making each other laugh and looking for ways to embarrass one another (all the better to make them laugh). When Armerding said, "Lori, kill time," she began telling a story about her daughter's Christmas show without missing a beat, and they had fun with Erelli's master's degree (in "Organismic and Evolutionary Biology," which they insisted be pronounced carefully). But then McKenna would start singing Nirvana's "All Apologies," and with Armerding harmonizing behind her on Kurt Cobain's last will and testament, it seemed a very good end to a very good year.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
