At 9:15 on Monday evening Deborah Silver walked on to the stand at Crazy Coqs, grabbed the audience by the scruff of the neck and didn’t let go til they sighed “uncle” some 75 minutes later. Apparently, she hails from the Deep South – Jackson, Mississippi – and had reservations about how well she might do here in the UK. I can best assuage those doubts by saying that from now on we’ll need reservations if we want to catch her again.
The material may not necessarily have been to my taste (the publicity had spoken of “Deborah Silver… in an all-new program reimagining iconic rock classics”) but the audience left her in no doubt that she hit one out of the park. She has clearly been frightened by Etta James, as so many younger singers seem to have been, but under all that showmanship there’s a decent set of pipes.
She sang That Old Black Magic and On The Sunny Side Of The Street then laid I Got Rhythm on us. But nothing if not eclectic she also brought what she calls “a jazz-infused twist” to The Stones’ Paint It Black, The Beatles’ I Want To Hold Your Hand and A Hard Day’s Night, Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, Sting’s Every Breath You Take, Seal’s Fly Like An Eagle and Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. Oh, this gal gets around.
The band weren’t exactly chopped liver either, if anyone asks you: Rick Krive, piano, Eduardo Bonnacio, bass, Will Cleasby, drums and Gary Branch, tenor sax/flute. A night to remember? For the bulk of the audience, yes. For me, I’d rather she stuck to the GAS classics.
