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Review
Blind Lemon Blues
York Theatre Company (St. Peter's Church)
September 26, 2009
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
The odd thing about Blind Lemon Blues, the current offering at the York Theatre Company, is how a too-long work doesn't necessarily bore and how a myriad of musical numbers and just a few words of dialogue here and there coalesce into a coherent, lasting impression of who Blind Lemon Jefferson was. Bookended by a recording session of Ledbelly (i.e., Huddie Ledbetter) in 1948, we learn how Mr. Ledbetter found his inspiration as well as his teacher. At a time when Ma Rainey and Bessie Tucker and other blues artists were making a splash in the relatively new recording industry, Lemon Jefferson somehow got lost in the shuffle so to speak. Not that he didn't accrue a certain amount of fame for his own recordings, but he was often drawn back to the street corners where performing with a tin cup kept his music authentic. At least that's what we're led to believe by the creators Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde, the latter of whom plays the part of Lemon.
Very simply directed and choreographed by Mr. Babatunde, the cast creates a full-bodied world out of nothing but some suitcases and a few musical instruments. We are transported to a very specific era but, as if in a dream, we can only sense it without actually being there. We wake up to evocative feelings and a fleeting déjà vue. Inga Ballard, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Timothy Parham, and Alisa Peoples Yarbrough have an ensemble's gift for being on the same page while stepping out as individual characters to perform a song perfectly suited to them and delivering the goods. Mr. Babatunde's booming croak helps us to feel the blues that Jefferson organically composed while his large, rambling presence becomes a solid fulcrum from which extend the many persons in Lemon's world. In the difficult role of Ledbelly who must fade into the background, Cavin Yarbrough manages to expertly give the stage to Mr. Babatunde and support him with self-effacing warmth.
Could a lot of this production been pared down? Most probably. But I think our understanding of a time and a people that gave us a distinctly American sound would suffer for it and that would certainly give us the blues.
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