KT Tunstall at the Aladdin

Right in the midst of this month's A to Z Challenge, I got to see one of my favorite performers live.

KT Tunstall, the amazingly versatile singer-songwriter out of Edinburgh, Scotland, played a solo show to a sold-out crowd Thursday night. Actually, she had a little help from "all my Taiwanese friends," a reference to the loop pedal, keyboards, guitars and assorted equipment she used during a 75-minute set.

I saw KT last fall, when she and her band impishly dressed up like dead rock stars for a show on Halloween. ("Halloween with KT") She had the stage all to herself last night at the Aladdin and had the crowd in her hand from the first song.

She is a fireball. She can wail on a guitar and bounce around with the best of them, often using her signature loop pedal for backing vocals or instrumentation. But she can also slow things down, too, as she did on a few songs from her latest CD, "Tiger Suit," and an all-acoustic, unreleased seven-song EP.

She also has a disarming sense of humor:

Female fan: "I love you, KT."
Tunstall: "What a coincidence. I love you, too...and I don't even know you.  Does that make me slutty?"

The song below is from "Tiger Suit." She closed with a hit "Suddenly, I See" from her debut CD.

Wondering about her heritage? Her mom is Chinese and Scottish; her dad, Irish.

Aaah, Tuesday

Tuesday has become one of my favorite days of the week. It's the first day of my work week. It's also the night when I look forward to gathering with friends for our regular night of bowling in a co-ed beer league. We're stuck in 10th place out of 12 teams this season but I couldn't care less. The camaraderie is great.

Last week, I would have doubled the fun by heading over to the Aladdin Theatre for a concert. Unfortunately, my car had a dead battery so I had to settle for just getting to and from the bowling alley, courtesy of Lori and a teammate.

Had I been able to go, I would have seen Mayer Hawthorne. Don't know him or his music? He's a skinny white guy from Los Angeles (via Ann Arbor, Michigan) whose real name is Andrew Mayer Cohen. He's got a retro Motown sound that's easy on the ears.

Undar the radar: Sarah Harmer

What is it about Canada and its ability to produce so many talented singer-songwriters? The list begins with Neil Young and the incomparable Joni Mitchell but it also includes k.d. lang, Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado, Robbie Robertson, Kathleen Edwards, Leslie Feist...and Sarah Harmer.

Sarah is probably the least well known of the bunch but she writes and plays some fine music. I saw her in concert at the Aladdin Theater Thursday night with her band and, during a 90-minute set that covered two dozen songs, she alternated between rock, pop and folk. She reminds me of Sheryl Crow, both in style and appearance, and sounds like Feist.

I learned of her a couple years ago and told myself I'd keep an eye out if she ever came to Portland. Evidently, she hadn't been here in about five years. But with a new CD to promote -- "Oh Little Fire" is her fifth album -- she's touring the U.S. and Canada and no doubt garnering new fans.

If you don't know her music, give a listen to "Basement Apartment." It's 10 years old but it's the tune that caught my attention. Maybe it'll catch yours.



Photograph by Anita Doron

Dar Williams in Portland

I've just come back from another weeknight concert at the Aladdin Theater, this time featuring indie/folk singer-songwriter Dar Williams. You may have heard of her. If not, find out more at her website. With a repertoire of eight albums and a live DVD, she sounds a bit like Shawn Colvin and has had numerous guest artists collaborate on a track or two.

Alison Krauss, for instance, sang with her on the above song, "The One Who Knows." Dar closed the show with it after first explaining that she wrote the song to honor schoolteachers and others who play such an influential role in children's development. The song is even more meaningful, she said, now that she and her husband have recently become the adoptive parents of a little girl from Ethiopia. (They also have a 5-year-old boy.)

If you went only by this song, you'd think it was a laidback evening. You'd be wrong.

Dar Williams is a bundle of nervous energy. When she plays an uptempo song, she's tapping her heel and bouncing on both feet, almost as if she were going to jump off the stage into the first couple of rows. Between songs, her banter is funny, genuine and loopy -- almost to the point where you think she's got ADHD.

She flits from subject to subject. During the evening, we learned, in no particular order:
-- That she graduated from Wesleyan University (Class of '89) in Connecticut, which she described as the Reed College of the East. ("Lots of hippies.")
-- That she's interested in religion, dropping joking references to Buddhism, Druids, Wiccans and Unitarians.
-- That she was drinking Portland tap water on stage instead of the bottles of Talking Rain she was provided. ("I love this city," she gushed.)
-- That during this visit, she went to Eagle Creek and Mount Talbot (she meant Mount Tabor). She even had her hostess, a longtime friend from Vermont, come on stage to sing harmony on a couple of songs.

It's funny. I went tonight, anticipating a mellow performer along the lines of Emmylou Harris or Patty Griffin. Instead, it was almost like Ellen DeGeneres with a guitar and a lovely voice.