Review: William Bell at Jazz at Lincoln Center
February 2017
New York City got a taste of Memphis soul last Friday night at William Bell’s performance in the Appel room of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The show was Bell’s first since winning “Best Americana Album” at this year’s Grammys for This Is Where I Live, and he played a set that spanned his almost sixty-year career. “We’re doing a lot of songs from the new CD and taking you down memory lane for some old Stax records from back in the day,” he prefaced. Like the album’s title track, which channels his early life in Memphis, the theme of the night seemed to be reflection - a celebration of his long career, and his recent, triumphant return.
The show began right on time, at 8:30pm, as Bell took the microphone out of its stand and launched into “Easy Coming Out, Hard Going in” from 1977 — one of his many songs about staying out too late, and doing things he shouldn’t. Wearing a well-cut suit, freshly polished shoes, black hat, sunglasses and a very shiny pinky ring, he looked every bit the southern playboy he was when he wrote it forty years earlier.
From there, he moved seamlessly into the first three tracks from the “new CD”: “The Three of Me,” “The House Always Wins,” and “She Put Poison In The Well,” before a gut-wrenching version of his first ever Stax recording, from 1961, “You Don’t Miss Your Water. At 77, Bell’s singing is still surprisingly strong. While it definitely shows some signs of age — his consonants are a little looser, and there is some roughness on the surface - the effects are not negative. Time has not so much damaged his voice, but softened it, adding a gentle husk to his lower register. And he can still hit all the notes. On “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” and “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” he sustained several impressive high-pitched cries, without seeming out of breath at any point.
The show was billed as “William Bell with special guest John Leventhal,” and Leventhal played a significant part in the performance — as lead guitarist and bandleader. His playing was as technically accurate as it is on record, but at certain points, it felt a bit stiff. It seemed as though he was too focused on coordinating the show to really relax into a groove. The rest of the band, which included trumpet, tenor and baritone saxophone, drums, bass, and keyboard played strong supporting roles. Backup singer Catherine Russell’s vocals on “Private Number” were a particular highlight. Russell, who is also a Grammy nominated Jazz singer, sung Judy Clay’s seductive part convincingly - gazing into Bell’s eyes as they harmonized the chorus.
It had been almost 40 years since Bell had released anything on a major label when This Is Where I Live came out in June of last year. He co-wrote most of the album with John Leventhal and Marc Cohn (of “Walking in Memphis” fame), both of whom have specialized in translating southern “roots” music for predominantly white audiences. As a nod to Bell’s early songwriting career it was released on the recently revived Stax imprint. The Grammy they won for the album was the first of Bell’s career. Given Leventhal’s heavy mark on the album - as a producer, engineer, and musician - one might worry that Bell was just a prop. But live, Bell’s role, at least as performer and interpreter, felt both active and essential.
Towards the end of the night, Bell brought Cohn up to accompany him on “All of Your Stories,” by Jesse Winchester. He stayed onstage through the final song of the main set, “Born Under A Bad Sign.” Bell wrote the song in 1969 for Albert King and it has since been covered by Cream, Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, and even, as Bell pointed out, Homer Simpson (“You laugh but he sold three million copies!”). Bell had not recorded it himself, though, until Leventhal convinced him to include it on This Is Where I Live. “It feels like sitting on a back porch down in a muddy Mississippi yard,” Bell said of his version. By the time his solo came around, Leventhal had finally relaxed.