PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | There’s been much said as to the glorious songwriting canon that is the “Great American Songbook.” Friday night at the Birchmere, Buster Poindexter took an audience through the “Great American Unsung Book”—and it was a revelation.
“It’s hard to compare it to anything else, because I don’t think anyone else is doing anything like this,” Poindexter told us last week as a lead up to the evening. “It’s really hard to say, ‘Oh, it’s like Tony Bennett—only funny!’ Because it’s not. [Laughs] I don’t know how to explain it. It goes through so many changes in an hour-and-a-half that it’s hard to put a finger on what it is. But it’s just great music and laughs and it’s a good vibe.”
“I would like to say it’s mellower than the old show used to be, but… it gets bombastic sometimes. It’s fun. It’s a lot of great music, great players, a lot of laughs—it’s a good night out.”
Poindexter was accurate on all accounts, but it seems both he and we missed an aspect to his live oeuvre last week that bears mentioning—his is a roots revival in the truest sense of the term.
Flipping through a literal songbook stage left, his is a canon loaded with off beat and off kilter gems from the early 1900s to present day that ascend to new heights when embraced by Poindexter and given a loving reading from a largely acoustic, crack combo—piano, stand-up bass, drums, and one hell of a plugged in guitarist. The band was in lock step with Buster’s warm timbre which massaged each verse and time signature through a panoply of eras and genres.
Ever the affable rouge, Poindexter punctuated his between song banter with jokes, observations, and stories which had many wondering if his was a stand-up act or a musical revue. (Turns out, it was a bit of both.) Later, after a lengthy break from the stage, Poindexter returned for a rousing encore with the audience friendly, “Hot, Hot, Hot” and closed the evening with each gent in the band getting a solo moment to shine.
There’s a vast well of timeless music heard all too infrequently which Buster Poindexter has set about unearthing. And audiences? Apparently all the better for it.
