Concert Review: Delaney Davidson & Barry Saunders – The Wine Cellar, May 3, 2019

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Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders brought their groovy, gritty sound to Wine Cellar last night, celebrating the release of the pair’s collaborative album, Word Gets Around.

It was a while since I’d been to Wine Cellar, and I forgot how unforgiving the space is if you are unable or unwilling to command it. It’s a small venue that comfortably fits around 50, but the intimacy of the bar often leaves set silences filled with muffled cheering or laughing from the room next door.

Fortunately, this worked very well for the opening set by Sandy Mill and Dianne Swann. I’d seen the two perform recently at The Tuning Fork and, while their sound was powerful in the larger room, the closeness of The Wine Cellar seemed designed for their music. Mill easily has one of the strongest and clearest voices you’ll hear in the current live music scene, and last night she and Swann performed a similar set to their recent gig – much from Mill’s album – but with just as much grace.

Perhaps due to the dive-bar atmosphere, their sound reminded me of early Sheryl Crow, while their music and performance together was pleasant and easy – you get a sense that it’s all coming from the heart, which often leads to a trade in high energy performance for something with a little more soul.

Taking the stage reasonably early for a Friday night, Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders also brought a whole lot of soul to the venue, along with a slightly disjointed but gritty, dark country set. Accompanied by the faultless Chris O’Connore on drums and Mark Hughes on bass, the headline duo took the crowd through a mix of classic tunes with the heavy drawl and growl of Tom Waits chain-smoking a carton of cigarettes.

Their sound was mostly a mix of the greats; Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Nick Cave all seemed to be present through much of the lyrical sections, with Saunders eliciting the kind of tequila-heavy vocals of late Bob Dylan, while Davidson seemed most relaxed when tearing a grimy blues riff from his guitar.

A cover of the classic Death Letter brought to mind the humming, Delta blues sound of Cassandra Wilson, but it was groovier, beat-driven dark country vibes on Red Morning and Word Gets Around that lifted the set from beautiful moodiness to crowd-moving melodies. Despite the feeling that both musicians were toeing around which influence to channel the most, there was definite beauty to much of the lyrics, and more than one grimy, blues-driven riff to get feet moving around the venue.

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