Opinion

Shocked Jams With Black

By Joanne Pilgrim

(07/17/2007)    What was to have been a solo show by Michelle Shocked at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett last Thursday turned into an extraordinary and compelling collaboration when Klyph Black, an East Hampton musician, joined her on electric and slide guitar.

    Mr. Black, who has performed at the Talkhouse for many years with various bands, and was the club’s sound engineer, was on hand for an afternoon sound check when Ms. Shock inquired if there was a guitar player around who could “play something between New Orleans and blues,” as he explained on Monday.   

    The guitarist, whose bands include Rumor Has It, the Zen Tricksters, and Donna Jean and the Tricksters with Donna Godchaux from the Grateful Dead, volunteered. A veteran musician, he has also played on the Talkhouse stage with Albert Collins, J.J. Cale, and the Band’s Levon Helm. On Monday, he and another East Hamptoner, Mama Lee Lawler, opened for the Subdudes.

    “We didn’t rehearse,” he said of last Thursday’s show. “She just kind of said, I’m going to do this. We jammed through the whole set. The only song I really knew was ‘If Love Was a Train.’ ”

    The audience — and Ms. Shocked —loved it. A Texas native, Ms. Shocked’s songs are something of a country-rock-folk-blues urbanized hybrid, with strong vocals. Mr. Black’s background riffs and guitar solos simultaneously added an edge and expanded their soulfulness.

    A feisty woman who called herself “bodacious,” Ms. Shock started the show with a howling scream, and ended it with one, too. In between, she belted it out on songs chosen by going backward through the alphabet, starting with titles near the Z end.

    Performing in between official tours — she has a new album coming out in September — Ms. Shocked said it’s hard to put together a show, so she used the alphabet instead, beginning with “When I Grow Up,” and including “Strawberry Jam,” “Come a Long Way,” and “Anchorage.”

    On “Repo Man,” she and Mr. Black played face to face, their guitars inches from each other, creating a musical exchange. During another song, sung largely a cappella, she stopped and turned to him, inviting him to play solo. “Go ahead, Captain Kirk,” she said. “Go where no man has gone before.”

    During “Graffiti Limbo,” Mr. Black’s guitar accompanied an extensive dialogue about politics. Ms. Shock told how, onstage in South Africa, she had called President Bush the “worst president ever.” Those three words, she said, created a ripple.

    “I was eviscerated, y’all,” she told the crowd. “I was, like, vaporized,” for speaking out, even by her “cherished fans.”

    “Klyph, what a night to remember,” Ms. Shocked said to the guitarist at the end of the show. “Take it home,” she told him, during “If Love Was a Train.” They left the stage arm in arm.