Presented by The Antonia and Vladimir Kulaev Cultural Heritage Fund.
This series showcases local and regional musicians in a relaxed and intimate setting. The lobby is transformed into a 70-seat showcase lounge!
MUSIC CITY ROOTS/NASHVILLE by Craig Havighurst
From extravagance to simple elegance, we went, as Kerri Powers took the stage with nothing but a chair, an acoustic guitar, and a tapping tambourine strapped to the toe of her boot. Reading about her, I assumed she’d be a folk strummer, but she began to lay down some of the finest country blues fingerstyle guitar we’ve had on our stage. It was shades of Rory Block, Chris Smither, and, all the way back, Blind Blake and Gary Davis. She’s got the dance, snap, and melodic intent that make the Piedmont style one of my lifetime favorites, and we too rarely see women focused on these skills. On top was a fascinating, strong voice rich with barbs and prickles. She was super bluesy on the opener “Tallulah Send A Car For Me.” But she also slowed things down with tenderness on “Train In The Night.” And she was cheeky in “Peepin’ Tom.” This was laid-back, well-written, and beautifully sung stuff....
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Presented by The Antonia and Vladimir Kulaev Cultural Heritage Fund.
This series showcases local and regional musicians in a relaxed and intimate setting. The lobby is transformed into a 70-seat showcase lounge!
MUSIC CITY ROOTS/NASHVILLE by Craig Havighurst
From extravagance to simple elegance, we went, as Kerri Powers took the stage with nothing but a chair, an acoustic guitar, and a tapping tambourine strapped to the toe of her boot. Reading about her, I assumed she’d be a folk strummer, but she began to lay down some of the finest country blues fingerstyle guitar we’ve had on our stage. It was shades of Rory Block, Chris Smither, and, all the way back, Blind Blake and Gary Davis. She’s got the dance, snap, and melodic intent that make the Piedmont style one of my lifetime favorites, and we too rarely see women focused on these skills. On top was a fascinating, strong voice rich with barbs and prickles. She was super bluesy on the opener “Tallulah Send A Car For Me.” But she also slowed things down with tenderness on “Train In The Night.” And she was cheeky in “Peepin’ Tom.” This was laid-back, well-written, and beautifully sung stuff.
Kerri Powers was destined to be a musician from the start. She spent hours reading, painting, writing stories, learning to play the guitar, and composing her first songs at the tender age of nine. By her own admission, she was a shy child, but her creative pursuits gave her an appreciation of the larger world around her. Those instincts were bred naturally, given the undeniable talent embedded in her genes. Bing Crosby was a distant relative on her father’s side, while her mother’s relatives were said to be descended from author Herman Melville. Notably, too, Powers’ paternal grandmother made her living by playing piano and providing musical accompaniment for silent films, making her a show-business standby back in the day.
Not surprisingly, then, Powers was encouraged to pursue her own creative ambitions while still in adolescence. Her mother, a talented visual artist in her own right, owned an extensive record collection, which gave Kerri her initial exposure to irrefutable icons like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and John Prine. “I would sit in a wicker rocking chair by the record player and sing along to the songs,” she recalls. “I remember hearing John Prine’s “Hello in There” for the first time and feeling that something magical was happening. It was a momentary yet memorable trip to a sad but hopeful place of lonely old faces.”
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