GREENSBORO – A truly impressive group of musicians came together with legendary singer-songwriter Leroy Preston for an engaging concert at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro last Saturday evening, all with credentials of performing and recording in their long careers with many nationally famous artists. Preston himself has significant name recognition, judging from the full house, for his bands Asleep at the Wheel and the Unknown Blues Band. With Michael Zsoldos on saxophone, Clyde Stats on bass, Lucas Alder on drums, Paul Asball on guitar and Chas Eller on keyboards, they gave a dynamic show in both their seamless coordination and their individual improvisations in the 15 numbers they played, almost all original Preston compositions. Guest singer Taryn Noelle added to the mix with her beautiful voice.
They began with a piece sung by Preston, “Eugene is in the Bottle (and he won’t come out tonight)”, a rather sad drinking song about a man dealing with a relationship gone south. There was a bluesy New Orleans feeling in the next selection, “There Was No One There But Me,” which described going back to someplace in one’s past but finding no one there to “ease my pain and set me free,” which Preston sang with his warm, expressive voice and commanding stage presence.
“You’re My Heartache” was a shuffle in its upbeat rhythms, but it’s lyrics were about a man unable to get over a lost love, always “alone with regrets in the morning and evening.” In “The Tunnel,” Preston got the audience to snap their fingers in sync with him in a tune about going home on the subway but enduring a mundane life every day. “If I Had Something to Drink” seemed slightly tongue in cheek about needing alcohol to face renewing a relationship with a woman. Taryn Noelle joined forces with Preston for “I Wonder” in well-blended voices about a person who has been disillusioned in the past and says, “Your love may be rue, but I wonder.” Noelle’s enunciation was very clear and her phrasing brought out the emotions of the words.
“The Train” song had the pulsing rhythms of a locomotive, while the analogy was that “my baby thinks he’s a train,” suggesting that her lover is perhaps too fast moving, always on the go. The driving beat slowed down at the end of the piece, like a train coming into a station. “Let Me Go Home Whiskey” was an old Asleep at the Wheel number, which gave Zsoldos a chance to really wail on his saxophone improvisations.
After the intermission, the band returned to play “City Side,” a poetic evocation of the pleasures of urban life but tinged with sadness over a failed marriage. “Big Black Heart” narrates the shock of discovering the darker side of the woman he was connected to, “behind those white lies.” “Careless Man” refers to an unfaithful husband who cheats on his wife, with the line, “Breaking hearts is an easy thing for a careless man to do.” It combined a catchy melody with well crafted lyrics.
Taryn Noelle returned to sing “Full Moon,” a love song with strong rhythms. “Bump Bounce Boogie” was great dance music, another work from the days of Asleep at the Wheel, which Noelle and Preston sang together harmoniously. “Has Anything Changed” with the last piece in Preston’s most recent album, “I Got Here From There,” and it had complex feelings about an ex-wife’s new marriage in the same town, to whom he still is conflicted by lingering love.
After receiving a heartfelt standing ovation from the audience, the band played a classic favorite (though not by Preston), Route 66, as an encore, with the amusing refrain, “Get your kicks on Route 66.” That highway runs from Chicago to Los Angeles, through quintessential America, but now it is something of a ghost road, superseded by faster interstate options. But nostalgia never dies.
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
