WERS 88.9 fm Performance Wrap-Up: Jesse Dee & Hey Mama

March 17^th, 2010

When Jesse Dee and Hey Mama came to The Paradise Rock Club, the venue looked and felt packed and judging by the amount of sweat, beer and moving feet on the floor all night, it's no question that the events three Boston-based artists rocked harder than you might expect based on their st udio material. Live shows display the colors of a band that can't be captured on anything circular.

The show opened with Hey Mama, a Cambridge-bred band fronted by Celia Woodsmith, whose step-team rhythm on washboard holds no candle to her vocal cords—a friend commented, "She sounds like a Janis Joplin meets Christina Aguilera" (think "Beautiful," not "Genie in a Bottle")—and Avi Salloway playing some tight-yet-dirty guitar. "It feels fuckin' great to be here on this stage tonight ladies and gentlemen," Woodsmith remarked before barreling into Mama's third tune, "From the Bottle." The tune's bluegrass pace and lyrics like "I opened up the door and the devil came inside" showed that the strong, red-haired singer never falters on beat, never trips over her own delivery, despite having strands of hair in her mouth.

Woodsmith and Salloway displayed incredible energy on stage, and at times nearly hopped into each other while getting loose on songs like "Drivin' Nails," where Salloway physically abused his guitar, thus pleasing our ears, rocking some filthy slide licks that gave his torn brown boots the possibility of imaginative history (maybe he's wrangled a few rattlesnakes?). At one point, with her eyes closed, Woodsmith tipped over her acoustic and kept plugging away even harder.

As for the headliner, Jesse Dee, 29 and originally hailing from Arlington, Massachusetts, played his heart out, ripping into a few songs, such as "I Won't Forget About You" and "Sweet Tooth," that are not on his 2008 debut, Bittersweet Batch.

Dee and his band—two saxmen, two guitarists, keyboarder, trumpeter, the whole gamut—jammed for what seemed like infinite time on "Reap What You Sow," a track that can be found on Batch, and had everybody in the venue dancing, clapping, singing wordlessly and getting into it.

His standout cuts, and the night's standout performances, did not come until the end of the. He performed a solemn cover of James Brown's ballad "Lost Someone," and dedicated it to those of us who've gone through losing a loved one. Watching Dee, you realize he's got one quality about him that is truly soulful and has nothing to do with his music or his execution or his style. It's something totally natural. He's got this inextricable quality about him that can only be equated with "Papa Don't Take No Mess," a song by James Brown himself. Jesse Dee's regular stage demeanor and Brown's singing on "Papa" both show the singers ablity to sound detached from the music, floating above it.

At the end of the show, every performer got on stage. Dee, singer Tim Gearan, Woodsmith and the rest of Hey Mama performed the get-down anthem of the night, "Whiskey Wash." A note on Jesse Dee's set list says "w/ everyone?" next to the track name, and the crowd loved it. Everybody sang and it was one huge stew of blues, soul and rock&roll served piping hot—all from three local artists who got love and gave love in the city from which they hail.

-Words by David Padula