Sam Phillips

This coming week, Sam Phillips celebrates another birthday (I'm going to be polite and not mention the year, you can look it up if you must). To celebrate I thought it would be nice to remind everyone just how much good music Sam has created over the last 20 or so years. So, starting now and going on into next weekend, The Promise will be playing lots and lots of Sam Phillips. Pretty much every hour, 24/7, there will be songs from all of her CDs, including music from her last CD as Leslie, "The Turning" and of course, music from her current Long Player project.

And... just thought of this... If you'd like to wish Sam a happy birthday, make an mp3 (under 20 seconds) of your message and email it to me at thepromise at gdrmusic dot com. I'll throw it into the rotation.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Rufus Wainwright in Long Beach

Where does the time go. Has it really been 2 weeks since this event? :-(

So... The Terrace Theater in Long Beach is a beautiful place to hold a concert. Rufus stole Leonard Cohen's backup singers, The Webb Sisters, to open for him. It was a wonderful choice. They gave us a short but lovely set featuring their unique harmonies. Their standard instrumentation of acoustic guitar and portable harp (with a bit of electric guitar in the background) made it even more fun. I picked up their EP after the show, which features their version of Cohen's "If it be your will". If you enjoy acoustic harmonies with an English folk edge, you should check them out.

There are two Rufus'. The big band Rufus and the solo Rufus. Tonight we got the latter. There's nothing wrong with that, although I'll take the full band if I have a choice. Rufus is very laid back; maybe a bit too much. He screwed up a few times, stopping and starting (making us all laugh along with him). This was similar to his House of Blues show last year. His full band show at the Wiltern a few years back was near perfect. So I have to believe that he is just more focused with the full band. Still, we are there for the voice and the songwriting, both in top form. His new songs were exciting and the oldies were powerful. Rufus is a wonderful entertainer and worth seeing, mistakes and all.