Tonight, I saw Michelle Malone at “New York City’s Oldest Rock Club,” the venerable rock venue Bitter End in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. I wrote about Malone (in concert with the Indigo Girls) a few days ago, and want to continue that thread here.

Malone, both paragon and paramour of the rich and soulish intersection of blues, rock, gospel, and folk, played an exhilarating set tonight of what I can only call nasty blues, to a crowd considerably larger than I have ever seen her attract at the Bitter End, having seen here there off and on for the last decade. (The last time I saw her there, a few years ago, there were probably only 30 or 40 of us, but tonight the house was packed with easily 150-200 people by my rough estimate).

This was easily among the loosest and most available Malone concert personae over the last ten years. She twice jumped up on tables for guitar solos, took many occasions for orans postures, poured herself aggressively into her harmonica solos, and has become more free than ever in her vocal growl and blues-rock acrobatics. Not to mention her guitar-playing, which complements in her own way her “blues sister” Susan Tedeschi’s own remarkable six-string prowess.

Partway through her set, in between refrains of “Jesus is Coming,” Malone yelled out a welcome to this (seen-it-all, it’s-all-good, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately) New York crowd with the words “Brothers and sisters of the first nondenominational church of New York City, can I get an amen?” Response: wild cheers.

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This morning I heard a program on the local radio station WNYC about bloggers who are (overtly or covertly) sponsored by corporate entities that provide gifts or money in (explicit or implicit) exchange for reviews of their products.

Of course, I immediately thought of our practices here at R&T. And just wanted to let you know that we are still “brought to you by” none other than the publisher Liturgical Press, as we have been since our debut in January.

Despite our frequent reviews of shows, artists or scholars, or commendations of songs, books or other publications, there are no other sponsors, and we receive no benefit from any purchase made on click-throughs from this site.

Tom Beaudoin

New York City, New York, United States