Concert Reviews

Beacon Theater, New York NY, 26 Oct 1988

The New York Times, 30 October 1988

Populists' Common-Sense Voices
by Stephen Holden

During the evolution of the modern folk-music movement, one quality that has remained in scant supply is an plainspoken unpretentious sincerity. From Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to John Denver and Jackson Browne, even the most talented and well-meaning performers, in delivering political messages, have tended to treat the concert stage as pulpit.

With today's younger generation of folk singers, however, the impulse to preach seems much less pronounced. Both Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked, who shared the bill at the Beacon Theater on Wednesday evening, are devoted folk populists who pointedly eschew celebrity posturing to speak in common-sense voices. Mr. Bragg, from England, is an outspoken socialist who strongly opposes Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Ms. Shocked, one of the most talented younger American folk performers, grew up in East Texas, the setting of many of her best songs, and now lives in London where she is involved in grassroots causes.

Performing together in a concert benefiting the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and the Living With AIDS Fund, Mr. Bragg and Ms. Shocked offered a bracing contrast of earnestness and whimsy on Wednesday. Although Mr. Bragg spent most of his set accompanying himself on an electric rhythm guitar, his strongest tune was an a cappella rendition of "Tender Comrade," a searching reflection on male bonding in the armed forces. Only his strong Cockney accent prevented his spare postpunk folk tunes from registering their fullest impact on a New York audience.

A storyteller in the seriously funny rural style of Arlo Guthrie, Ms. Shocked sang her colorful vignettes about growing up in East Texas with an easygoing good humor that was utterly winning. Ms. Shocked rarely addressed political issues, preferring to let her wonderfully detailed vignettes of ordinary lives weave a musical tapestry of shared experience.

The Palace, Los Angeles CA, 7 Mar 1989

Los Angeles Times, 9 March 1989

MICHELLE SHOCKED: THE GAP BETWEEN ART AND ATTITUDE
By Robert Hilburn, Times Pop Music Critic

Michelle Shocked, who headlined the Palace on Tuesday, is a Texas vagabond who has been hailed as everything from a Joan Baez with humor to a female Woody Guthrie.

In an age obsessed with technology and flash in pop music, Shocked favors plain attire (a black cap, black sweater and jeans) and plays her songs on a $75 guitar she bought 10 years ago in a pawn shop. Even the lanky performer's songs are simple -- at least on the surface.

Employing a folk singer's restlessness and innocence, she writes in her most affecting numbers about such everyday matters as old dirt roads, volunteer fire departments and kids' pranks.

In last year's highly acclaimed album "Short Sharp Shocked" she turned those down-home images into wonderfully perceptive and original commentaries on people's aspirations -- and the factors that sometimes crush or defuse those dreams. Like much of Guthrie's work, the commentaries are occasionally laced with a sharp social bite.

At the Palace, the freshness and warmth of the album's songs were especially endearing. How surprising then that Shocked's manner seemed far less generous and engaging.

While working hard at disarming the audience with a folksy informality (lots of shy winks and aw-shucks smiles), she seemed discouragingly programmed.

Many of the song introductions were word-for-word and wink-for-wink repeats of her set when she opened a few months ago for Billy Bragg at the Wiltern Theatre. Even worse, there were signs of the ultimate protest singer's disease: a patronizing attitude.

Shocked explained to the supportive Palace audience that she now lives in London because she is disenchanted with the social apathy in her native land.

Rather than offer the charitable spirit of someone who wants to encourage people to be more understanding, she acted as if anyone who disagreed is an inferior being in need of scolding.

"This is a song about Vietnam," Shocked said sarcastically, in introducing an anti-war song by the late Steve Goodman. "That was a war about 15 years ago."

Later, Shocked took on a discouragingly easy target: evangelical hucksters.

The obvious and heavy-handed moments contrasted sharply with the grace of the album. They also raised questions about the future of Shocked's work -- work that to this point has been exceptionally promising.

Because Shocked is female and sings in a folk-based style, she has been frequently linked in pop trend pieces with Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega. But Shocked is in no way a shadow of either artist.

There is a rural, open-spaces feel to her music, as opposed to the urban tension of Chapman or the uptown sophistication of Vega. On record, where she uses a band, Shocked offers inviting folk, rockabilly and roadhouse blues touches.

At the Palace, where she was accompanied by just the $75 guitar, the music was more plain, but the themes were no less engaging.

In songs such as "Memories of East Texas," Shocked sets the scene with a greater sense of landscape than most pop writers. She speaks of the "pine-green rolling hills" and "all the curves down by Kelsey Creek and the detour by Lindsay's pasture."

In establishing the comfortable, everyday images of hometown sentimentality, she is just setting up the listener for a twist at the end: a reflection on how small towns can be intolerant and break the spirit of young mavericks.

The same sense of understated commentary -- and even fury -- is found in "Graffiti Limbo," a story of a New York graffiti artist who died of strangulation under reportedly cloudy circumstances after being arrested by police.

But Shocked's artistry isn't limited to confrontation. "Hello Hopeville" is a sweet tale of two people on the run, one eager to leave home and the other looking for one after a long time on the road. Sample line, "He was waiting for a station / Just like some people wait for a train."

With songs this graceful, there is no need to hammer people with sarcasm or turn them off with smugness. The humanity of Shocked's work carries its own power and persuasion. At the Palace, she needed to show more faith in that humanity.

9:30 Club, Washington DC, 15 Mar 1989

Washington Post, 17 March 1989

MICHELLE SHOCKED
By Kathi Whalen

Though folk singer Michelle Shocked stands alone on stage with just her acoustic guitar, waiflike and vulnerable she's not. Her ingratiating performance at the 9:30 club Wednesday was truly a night of soul-baring, but these confessionals were bold and designed to provoke thought, not pity.

She picked a bittersweet, jazz-tinged path back to her teen-age years ("Memories of East Texas"), mashed all her politics into a single bit of a cappella country-blues ("Garden Salad Diplomacy") and reflected on grown-up-rebel relationships in Top 40 folk ("Anchorage") with a perpetual, unself-conscious grin. Best when her words touched not so much the audience as their singer, Shocked came close to tears during "The Ballad of Penny Evans," and Leadbelly's "Midnight Special" had her giggling and beaming with joy in her affection for the song.

Her flair with a pun and general homespun attitude leavened the heavy dose of proselytizing she injected into the set, and those still feeling a little alienated might have found refuge, whether or not this was Shocked's intention, in "Penny Evans," an ironic tribute to a woman who had no use for politics at all.

Lisner Auditorium, Washington DC, 30 Apr 1990

Washington Post, 2 May 1990

SHOCKED'S SASSY COUNTRY ROCK
By Joe Brown

On Monday night, Lisner Auditorium became the country's hippest coffeehouse. Or maybe it was the most happening street corner. Three folk-rock acts -- Michelle Shocked, Poi Dog Pondering and John Wesley Harding -- former buskers and wandering minstrels all, were united for an inspired jamboree.

Clearly having a ball fronting her tight, slick (but still swinging) sextet, headliner Shocked explained her sudden shift from politically correct folkie to sassy country swinger by quoting Emma Goldman: "If I can't dance, you can keep your revolution." She invited audience members to dance in the aisles, and as the brass blasts of "Silent Ways" kicked in, they came finger-snapping and hip-shaking down the aisles; when the band vanished for Shocked's acoustic solo set, the dancers sat there cross-legged, equally ready to sing along to "Memories of East Texas" and other conversationally sung, emotionally engaging favorites.

Shocked picked a tough act to follow when she chose as her tourmates Poi Dog ("mutt" in pidgin Hawaiian) Pondering, a merry band of eight former street musicians from Hawaii, Texas and elsewhere. Poi Dog's sophisticated primitivism is possibly the happiest sound in pop right now.

As the band set up the slowly accelerating locomotive chug that began "Big Walk," antic singer Frank Orrall twirled an illuminated globe all over the stage. Augmented by such atypical rock instruments as violin, mandolin, accordion and tin whistle, Poi Dog makes pop music for the global village, and a game of "spot the influence" can be played with every song: In "Pulling Touch," for example, you might have heard hints of Jonathan Richman, the Tijuana Brass, "Magical Mystery Tour"-period Beatles, "Desire"-era Dylan and "Remain in Light" Talking Heads, just for starters.

Opening was Briton John Wesley Harding (who borrowed his name from a Dylan album), offering a brief but impressive solo set of songs about world and bedroom politics sung in a style that combined Billy Bragg's British brashness with Elvis Costello's verbosity and roller-coaster melodies.

Coach House, Santa Barbara CA, 29 May 1990

Los Angeles Times, 31 May 1990

SHOCKED DOESN'T RETREAT; SHE STILL SUPPLIES HIGH VOLTAGE
By Jim Washburn

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO -- In switching from her folk-based songs to the seemingly less-confrontational jump-blues pleasures of her current horn-driven "Captain Swing" album, Michelle Shocked has some fans and critics thinking she's abandoned her radical barricades.

At the Coach House Tuesday night, Shocked's overwhelming, life-charged 21-song performance made it clear she's not retreating, just exploring other avenues of liberation. Specifically, her performance asserted, there's no point in manning the front lines unless you've also got your backfield in motion.

Before getting far into her set, the slight, impish singer felt it necessary to justify her recent changes to the audience. She wryly maintained, "It's no secret that political correctness has been a serious social disease for the last several years... Don't make the mistakes I did." In prescribing shaking some booty to Professor Longhair tapes as a cure, she went on to quote radical forbear Emma Goldman: "What good's a revolution if I can't dance?"

Shocked's flat-out-wonderful, dance-happy music needed no justifying manifesto. Like the glory days of ululant "wop mop a lu mop" rock, the wild, unfettered spirit of the singer and her six-piece Captain Swing Revue conveyed all the liberation one could ask for.

With some input from her producer, Pete Anderson (who also helms Dwight Yoakam's recordings and is a master guitarist in his own right), Shocked has assembled a monstrously good band, with a stylistic purview ranging from swinging Louis Jordan-influenced jump arrangements to free jazz to rampant rockabilly.

Though Shocked's voice is far from naturally suited to the rigors of a horn-blaring outfit, she pushed her limitations and communicated the crucial life and emotion often missed by more skilled singers.

Sometimes awash in the band's anarchic-but-tight musical melee, her lyrics remained politically incisive -- as with the current album's "homeless trilogy" of "God Is a Real Estate Developer," "The Cement Lament" and "Streetcorner Ambassador" -- and evocative of the byways of American life. With a rare eye for detail, "(Making the Run to) Gladewater" beautifully delineated adolescent life in a small Texas town.

Throughout that song and others, the band members provided a constant foil for Shocked. In place of the refined fire of Anderson's playing on the albums, band guitarist Jon Dee Graham delivered wrenching, emotional guitar lines. Keyboardist Skip Edwards ranged from gospel organ hues to Longhair-ed romps on his instrument, while horn players Jim Pollock and Darrell Leonard touched on everything from Sidney Bechet to Don Cherry in their spirited playing.

In expanding her musical scope, Shocked has by no means lost touch with her folk finesse. She did a mid-show solo acoustic turn, playing the haunting, fragile reminiscence "Memories of East Texas," "5 a.m. in Amsterdam," an a cappella Steve Goodman anti-war ode, and a mandolin and fiddle instrumental tune, "Jeff Davis," on which she was joined by her father and brother.

Her closing encore song, the unreleased "Makin' Jam," recommended eschewing the "corporate jam factories" because "If you want the best, you've got to make your own."

As the band percolated under her voice, Shocked made her point more explicit: "If there's one thing that I want you to know, it's that if I can do this, you can do it too. . . . When it comes down to it, there's a thing true about music and politics: They're both too important to be left to professionals like us."

If that isn't the basic -- though all but subverted lately -- message of rock and roll, what is?

Opener John Wesley Harding fared better with the audience than when he first appeared at the Coach House a few months back. He earned an encore call this time, but his performance remained more clever than compelling. One could do worse than to draw on Elvis Costello as a signal influence -- along with Harding's comparatively tortured wordplay, he's got the Big E's vocal inflections down to a T -- but Harding's own limited talents couldn't help looking that much thinner when he so often borrowed Costello's big suit.

Coach House, Santa Barbara CA, 29 May 1990

Los Angeles Times, 31 May 1990

MICHELLE SHOCKED'S DANCE-HAPPY REVOLUTION

Like Dylan when he "went electric" in '65, Michelle Shocked has alienated a number of fans and critics with her switch from folk-based songs to the seemingly less confrontational jump-blues-flavored music on her current "Captain Swing" album. The foment has been such that Shocked evidently thinks it necessary to justify the switch during her shows.

At the Coach House on Tuesday the slight, impish singer wryly asserted that "political correctness has been a serious social disease for the last several years... Don't make the mistakes I did." She went on to cite a cure, quoting radical forebear Emma Goldman: "What good's a revolution if I can't dance?"

Shocked's flat-out wonderful, dance-happy music needed no explication: The wild, unfettered spirit of the singer and her six-piece Captain Swing Revue conveyed all the liberation one could ask for. Her voice is far from naturally suited to the rigors of a horn-blaring outfit, but, pushing its limitations, she communicated the crucial life and emotion often missed by more skilled singers.

Though sometimes awash in the band's anarchic-but-tight musical melee, her lyrics remained politically incisive, and evocative of the byways of American life. Coupled with the still-potent solo folk finesse evidenced on the haunting, fragile reminiscence "Memories of East Texas," the "new" Shocked remains one of the best things to happen to American music in years.

Shocked also appears tonight at the Bacchanal in San Diego, Friday at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura and Saturday at the Wiltern Theatre.

-- Jim Washburn

"A Gathering of the Tribes" festival, Pacific Amphitheatre, Costa Mesa CA, 7 Oct 1990

Los Angeles Times, 9 October 1990

DIVERSITY CAPTURES A FOLLOWING
All-Day Festival Features Stylists Ranging From Hard Rockers To Folkies To Rappers.
By Mike Boehm, Times Staff Writer

COSTA MESA -- Chalk up one small blow for diversity, if not for overriding musical excellence.

Dubbed "A Gathering of the Tribes," the all-day pop smorgasbord at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Sunday attracted 9,000 to 10,000 people, according to promoters -- not a bad draw for a 14-act bill that lacked even a single marquee name capable of headlining an amphitheater in Orange County.

This gathering sprang from British rocker Ian Astbury's idea of creating a festival of contrasting stylists ranging from hard rockers to folkies to rappers. While at least 95% of the audience was white, listeners' enthusiastic embrace of the lineup's two rap acts, and their willingness to sample and enjoy the 10-hour day's full range of performers, showed that diversity has a constituency.

Any worries about rap being rejected, or merely tolerated, disappeared the moment Queen Latifah burst onto the stage late in the afternoon with hammering beats and exuberant personality. She instantly ignited an audience that was ready to rock after having been served a diet of much milder stuff. On a day of performances that were mostly mixed and occasionally dreary, Latifah and Michelle Shocked claimed the two strongest showings.

(A traditional hoop dance by a chanter and a dancer from the American Indian Dance Theatre was another highlight, combining athleticism, symbolism and the almost magical manipulations of an escape artist).

Latifah's raps offered overworked boastful themes, but what she said mattered less than how she said it. The New Jersey rapper's 20-minute set communicated zest, humor and friendliness and a healthy measure of confidence and self-respect. Latifah summoned her pal, Sinead O'Connor, from the wings at one point. O'Connor said one word -- "hello" -- then retreated, ending the day's best chance for a surprise combination of talents.

The lineup's other rapper, Ice-T, was all profane bluster and attitude. Sometimes he made sense -- notably in his between-songs attack on anti-rap censorship. Ice-T suggested that race, not morality, is the motive behind moves to suppress rap: "It's not the fear of you hearing a word I might say. It's the fear of you liking me, the fear of white kids liking black kids, and us getting along again."

But the Los Angeles rapper's determination to be uncompromising makes him a blind fool when it comes to the subject of sex. Noting that he has been criticized for sexism, Ice-T flaunted it by calling a blond, buxom, halter-topped fan on stage, then using her as exhibit A in a lesson that women are sex objects first and foremost.

Ice-T was hardly the day's only performer to sing about raw lust. But some of the others presented a few of the emotions involved. Hard rockers Soundgarden, for instance, were able to offer some contrast between the rampant hormones of "Big Dumb Sex" and the deeper longing of "I Awake." Some sense that Ice-T appreciates women as people, as well as mounds of manipulable flesh, would be helpful.

Public Enemy might have supplied another rap vision on that subject, what with the new-found respect for women on its "Fear of a Black Planet" album. But the popular and controversial politicized rappers didn't appear as advertised.

Speaking angrily to the crowd at separate junctures, Astbury, Latifah and Ice-T said Public Enemy was missing because of pressure from local authorities. But Rick Pickering, Costa Mesa's assistant city manager, said Monday that he was not aware of any efforts by the city to keep the band off the bill. "That's not an area that we would typically get involved in," Pickering said. Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden and representatives of the band could not be reached Monday for comment. Alex Hodges, in charge of concert booking for the Pacific, had no comment when asked backstage Sunday whether there had been pressure from the city to take Public Enemy off the program.

Public Enemy had been scheduled to perform at an identical "Tribes" show held Saturday at the Shoreline Amphitheatre outside San Francisco but did not appear there, either. In that case, Astbury said in an interview, the group's key rappers, Chuck D and Flavor Flav, failed to make the show because they missed a flight. It had been announced on Friday that Public Enemy would perform at the Bay Area Tribes show, but not in Costa Mesa.

Advising the audience that too much "political rectitude" can cause hemorrhoids, Shocked -- who has been known to deliver a political broadside or two -- offered good-time rocking blues that often romped with humor and energy thanks to sharp backing from her allies for the day, the 10-man Tower of Power.

But Shocked interrupted the fun for "Cold Comfort," a stark folk song about dealing with grief. She said she wrote it for the Tower of Power drummer, whose mother was killed recently by a drunk driver. After that, bringing Tower of Power back for a closing "What Is Hip" was awfully abrupt, but there was no room for deft pacing in a 30-minute set.

The Indigo Girls could take some hints from Shocked about the advantages of not being too solemn. The acoustic folk duo from Georgia mounted some lovely harmonies (there was a nice, rowsing version of the Youngbloods' "Get Together") but these women remain earnest to a fault.

There was a reminder during Indigo Girls set that a gathering of diverse tribes creates lots of chances for misunderstanding: While the folkies were singing, Ice-T conducted a grand entrance, promenading along the aisle parallel to the stage and greeting fans before settling into a seat, where he attracted more attention.

It didn't sit well with Indigo Girl Amy Ray. "The purpose to be here is . . . not to cause a scene. Everybody's given (his or her) time," she told the crowd, with justified annoyance. Interviewed at his seat, Ice-T said he meant no disrespect.

Actually, Ice-T's stroll through the crowd was fun, and the diversion from the Indigo Girls was no great loss. Still, he should have saved it for a break between acts.

The day's least-known performers, Canadian folk-rockers Crash Vegas and British '60s revivalists Charlatans U.K., emerged as promising newcomers who both deserve fuller hearings in more intimate surroundings. Crash Vegas' intense waif of a singer, Michelle McAdorey, is an intriguing figure, and the band's instrumental trio was adept at gradually building a song's intensity. The Charlatans' dominant Hammond organ sound conjured shades of early, pre-metal Deep Purple and "Revolver"-era Beatles among other '60s sources. Not exactly original, but it made for some nice, enveloping waves of sound.

The other rookie rock band on the bill, London Quireboys, regurgitated old Rod Stewart and Faces stuff. They came up with spirited guitar cranking and piano banging on "7 O'Clock" but showed none of the warmth, humor or bonhomie of vintage Stewart.

The Cramps played longer -- and worse -- than any other band on the bill. The Los Angeles group's mix of rockabilly, '60s garage rock and campy sex-and-horror shtick would have been more palatable if it had been executed briskly. Instead, the Cramps' sound was a jumbled mess of ugly fuzz bass, inaudible guitar and hoarse vocals from scrawny Lux Interior. Lux is one of the last people on earth you'd want to see cavorting with nearly nothing on -- but of course he did, anyway.

Soundgarden's sludgy hard rock lacked a sharp honed edge, but the Seattle band did pack a rumbling wallop. Singer Chris Cornell's emotional howls on "Hands All Over" and "I Awake" lifted those numbers out of the instrumental murk.

Mission U.K.'s barefoot singer, Wayne Hussey, was an extremely energetic panderer but still a panderer. His leaps into the audience and gambols about the stage were attention-getters, but the band's pompous music was at odds with his fun-loving persona. By the way, those were canned rhythm and keyboard tracks on the two songs that Hussey pronounced "the best you'll hear all day."

Former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones makes a decent hard rock sidekick, but his singing was too weak to make him much of a band leader. Things improved when Astbury took over the vocals for the last three songs, and his partner in the Cult, Billy Duffy, arrived to add some guitar riffing. It was monolithic stuff, though, and not nearly enough to fire up a crowd that was clearly tiring near the end of a long day.

Iggy Pop finished with a set that was awfully restrained, considering his well-earned position as one of rock's most combustive live performers. A mediocre band with a guitarist given to metal-style noodling didn't help. But Pop's material was mostly first rate, especially since he drew heavily on the repertoire of his original band, the Stooges.

Pop was the only performer in the lineup who began recording in the 1960s (only Jones and the Cramps got their start in the '70s). No misty Woodstock sentimentality for Iggy, though. Singing the Stooges' song "1969," he remembered it as a time of alienation: "Another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do."

If Astbury is really serious about diversity, the next time the Cult -- an established arena headliner -- goes on tour, he'll insist on a Queen Latifah, a Michelle Shocked or a Charlatans U.K. as an opening act, instead of the usual "compatible" opener. That could mean some financial sacrifice, because "compatible" acts tend to increase the draw.

But if that happens (and don't bet on it, because it would mean going against the principle of profit maximization), it will be interesting to see whether audiences not primed in advance for diversity are as receptive as the crowd that came to the Pacific on Sunday, open to anything.

Times staff writer Rick VanderKnyff contributed to this report.

Palais, Melbourne, Australia, 9 Mar 1991

The Age, Melbourne, Australia, 11 March 1991

Michelle Shocked - and got away with it
by Suzy Freeman-Greene

You can call Michelle Shocked anything as long as it isn't predictabie. That was the message on Saturday night as the Texan singer did her best to escape the stereotypes.

"It's no secret that political correctness has become a serious moral disease," she told her audience in a cute east Texan drawl. Most of us didn't have a problem with that; we only began squirming when she observed, "And you do seem like a bit of on anal retentive bunch..."

It takes someone as friendly, playful and unpretentious as Ms Shocked to get away with a comment like that. She did, of course, and the next second the aisles were crammed as fans embraced their cue to dance.

When she played here early last year, Ms Shocked stunned us with a spare, display of her voice and her acoustic guitar. This time we saw a rockier, even more relaxed version. Her decision to tour with The Messengers signals a desire for a musical change and she seemed happy to be playing with other musicians.

Ms Shocked is a performer who escapes classification. She smiles and screams and slaps her guitar; then quietly tells us a slyly funny story. One minute she is clowning around; the next she sings the fiercely sad ballad of a Vietnam war widow that leaves you stiff with anger.

Her unconventional concert began with a set from the Messengers; who were later joined by Ms Shocked for a number of rock and roll tracks. After an interval, she sang a brilliant acoustic set and then introduced a surprise guest, Paul Kelly, whose version of 'Tighten Up' could have done without the additional female vocalists.

She sang favorite tracks from 'Short, Sharp, Shocked' and 'Captain Swing' in her clear, sharp voice. A highlight was her reworked version of an old fiddle tune called 'The Weavin' Way'; my only reservation was that it would have been nice to have heard some more new material.

This was her first show with the Messengers and while she is obviously an admiring fan it was still very much a love affair between Ms Shocked and her audience. The sheer force of her exuberant personality ensured a wonderfully intimate night. Her advice was, "This is your party so swing it." It was followed to the last beat.

Birchmere, Washington DC, 20 Oct 1991

Washington Post, 25 October 1991

SHOCKED AND SOUNDLY ROCKED
By Eric Brace

Michelle Shocked put on a stunningly brilliant evening of music and musicology at the Birchmere Sunday night. While she admitted that having the entire audience seated at tables might have taken away some of her energy, she left no one feeling cheated, and her melding of country, blues, swing, folk and bluegrass slighted none of the genres.

The best part of the show was the first half, which featured Shocked and the truly great Austin trio the Bad Livers sitting in a semicircle, playing songs from her upcoming album. The record will be a doozy, featuring mostly traditional fiddle tunes to which Shocked has written lyrics. "Prodigal Daughter," a version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe," was the standout, taking on society's gender-based double standards with something approaching lyrical genius. Her reworkings of such old pickers' favorites as "Blackberry Blossom" and "Soldier's Joy" were similarly satisfying.

The second half of the show was a showcase for Shocked's earlier songs such as "The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore" and "If Love Was a Train," stripped down to their most emotional essentials. The Bad Livers (guitarist and banjo player Danny Barns, bassist Mark Rubin and fiddler and accordion player Ralph White) must be complimented on complementing Shocked's compositions with uncanny intuition.

Sanders Theater, Boston MA, 23 Oct 1991

The Boston Globe, 25 October 1991

Expect The Unexpected From Michelle Shocked
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff

Michelle Shocked has fashioned a career that truly follows the dictum: Expect the unexpected. As a folk ingenue, she burst on the scene five years ago through campfire tapes made at a rural Texas music festival. She then became an urban folk darling with the escape-the-city anthem "Anchorage," followed by an out-of-left-field album of swing music.

Her latest project is a folkie's dream -- taking a 48-track mobile studio on the road, recording with the likes of Doc Watson, Pops Staples, Alison Krauss, Levon Helm and Norman Blake in their natural habitats, from Woodstock to a riverboat on the Missouri River, a barn in Tennesee and an antique store in Georgia. "I went to see all of my heroes. It was like putting myself in the middle of all my favorite records," Shocked told a capacity 1,200 crowd at Sanders Theater Wednesday.

The trip's object was to unearth old fiddle tunes and write new lyrics to them. The album, "Arkansas Traveler," won't be out until February, but she previewed most of it at Sanders. Some tunes were insubstantial, hobbyist exercises ("Blackberry Blossom," "Strawberry Jam"), but others were profoundly moving, such as the Cajun-spiced "Prodigal Daughter," based on "Cotton-Eyed Joe"; and "Shaking Hands," based on the the fiddle standard "Soldier's Joy." The latter was a Civil War term for morphine; and Shocked added these chilling lyrics: "What the bullet would not kill, the needle will."

Occasionally, she became preachy, saying of Pops Staples that "Creedence Clearwater Revival stole everything from him." That kind of extremism was unbecoming. But more often than not, she was in jolly, enthusiastic form, whether discussing her new marital engagement or asking the crowd to lock arms and square dance when Boston percussionist Mr. Bones joined in. She also played solo and with the three-piece Austin string group the Bad Livers, serving up a few early hits and, during a second set, adding a theatrical backdrop of a country cabin and wood stove for down-home flair. Expect the unexpected, to say the least.

Lone Star Roadhouse, New York NY, 24 Oct 1991

The New York Times, 27 October 1991

Michelle Shocked's Style
By Karen Schoemer

On Thursday night at the Lone Star Roadhouse, Michelle Shocked introduced "Woody's Rag," a Woody Guthrie song, by inviting an audience member onstage. She put a mandolin in his hand and announced that she was going to teach him the chords so he could play along. When the audience good-naturedly heckled his lack of expertise, Ms. Shocked laughed too; for a moment there she had crossed a fine line and become just another spectator at the show.

A lot of rock and pop music professes a populist ethic, but few singers take the concept as seriously as Ms. Shocked. Her debut album, "The Texas Campfire Tapes," was literally recorded around a campfire with just an acoustic guitar and crickets chirping in the background. Her songs dig past contemporary folk into its roots of country, blues and Western swing, and her lyric sheets name what key each song is written in, just in case listeners want to pick up a guitar and play it themselves.

Ms. Shocked's two sets at the Lone Star -- one acoustic and one accompanied by a mandolin-slap bass-fiddle trio called the Bad Livers -- were also founded on the principle that music belongs to everybody. Wearing a black tank top, black stretch pants and black sneakers, looking more like a bike messenger than a folkie, she would sometimes stop a song in the middle to explain what it was about. When it came to a key word or phrase in a song, she would speak it instead of singing it, as if she wanted to be seated at a table with all the members of the audience, gazing straight into their eyes.

Ms. Shocked's second set consisted of early American fiddle tunes to which she had set her own lyrics, and which will make up the bulk of her coming album, "Arkansas Traveler." She unveiled a front-porch stage set, complete with a hanging lantern, moonshine jugs and a screen door. Such a blunt literalization of her populist ethic at first seemed unbearably hokey, but Ms. Shocked and the Bad Livers tore into rewritten Americana traditionals like "Prodigal Daughter" and "Blackberry Blossom" with such fervor that the stage set almost seemed real.

Town And Country Club, London, England, 4 May 1992

The Guardian, London, 6 May 1992

TOWN AND COUNTRY: MICHELLE SHOCKED
By Robin Denselow

Michelle Shocked has progressed from obscure, quirky Texan folkie to unpredictable and even more quirky celebrity, now based in Los Angeles. It's been a cheerfully idiosyncratic success, involving work for the squatters' movement, a debut album recorded on a Walkman at a folk festival that topped the British indie charts, the startling selections of self-written blues, personal ballads and anger in the Short Sharp Shocked set, then a less happy excursion into forties swing.

Now, doubtless to the delight of her record company, she's come up with her most commercial album yet. Arkansas Traveller places her as a front-runner in the country/roots movement that's gaining ground in America as white rock thrashes around for new directions. It includes easy-going songs like Come A Long Way, the first Shocked material to be guaranteed radio play, and it helped her pack the T&C. But thankfully she's as individual as ever.

Coming on like some Southern preacher's daughter in floral frock and straw hat, she started by showing how her five-piece multi-instrumentalist band could mix every roots style going, from blue grass to blues, country ballads, ragtime, rock and a hefty dose of post-Pogues Irish. Ms Shocked played mandolin and guitar, her deadpan, cool Californian sidekick Alison Brown produced some rapid-fire banjo work and stinging guitar solos, while the rest played anything from fiddles to keyboards, accordian, drums and spoons.

The new songs included the gently stomping, bluesy Secret Of A Long Life, a sweet and sturdy guitar ballad, Blackberry Blossom, and just one almost over-twee piece Over The Waterfall, which was saved by a rousing fiddle jig workout. But there's a tougher side to this oddball all-rounder. During the encore she spotted a favourite fan squashed near the front and stopped the show for a good five minutes as she invited her on stage to be taught the mandolin part to Woody's Rag. Amazingly, she didn't lose her audience in the process, just softened them up for a timely reminder of the Los Angeles riots and police brutality with Graffiti Limbo, still the strongest song she's written. Los Angeles hasn't tamed her yet.

Town And Country Club, London, England, 4 May 1992

The Times, London, 8 May 1992

Wandering Off The Trail
By Alan Jackson

Michelle Shocked, Town and Country

The fortunes of the 32-year-old Texan singer-songwriter have certainly changed since 1986, when Pete Lawrence of the British label Cooking Vinyl heard her perform at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He recorded her on a small cassette machine, and the resultant Texas Campfire Tapes introduced a spirited voice to an international audience. Now with a major label, she recorded her recent third LP, Arkansas Traveller, in very different circumstances.

To get an authentic atmosphere for songs exploring the origins of American roots music, Shocked travelled across the United States and Ireland in a mobile home, collaborating along the way with such luminaries as Clarence Gatemouth-Brown and the Hothouse Flowers. The results were recorded via a 48-track mobile studio, and formed the basis for the set of her current British tour.

Unhappily, despite their obvious commitment and attention to detail, few of the album's 14 tracks play to her original strength as a narrative songwriter of economy and insight. With the Town and Country's stage transformed into something resembling a Walt Disney barnyard, Shocked and her skilled band romped through a series of songs generously decorated with violins, mandolins and banjos, yet somehow missing any sense of emotional realism or urgency.

The multifariously costumed artist's normally rich and fluent voice was strident on "Contest Coming (Cripple Creek)" and "Shaking Hands (Soldiers Joy)", while the traded joke of the album's title track proved every bit as self-conscious live as on record. Only the excellent recent single, "Come A Long Way", matched the considerable best of her earlier work.

A considerable number of fans demonstrated no such reservations, their patience even encompassing the spectacle of members of the audience being invited up on stage to take part in one of several encores. The clamorous reception they offered her marked the evening a convincing victory for Shocked, but suggests it may be some time before she is encouraged to question the creative wisdom of her current direction.

Town And Country Club, London, England, 4 May 1992

The Independent, London, 7 May 1992

Alternative Roots
By Jim White

Given the acreage of cropped hair, muscles and boots lining up at the bar to buy pints of beer, it might have come as something of a surprise that the huge cheer which greeted Michelle Shocked was overwhelmingly in the upper register. But Ms Shocked has always been a woman's woman, and the wimmin were out in strength on her return to this country.

She was wearing a Gibson guitar and an eccentric striped outfit which would have benefited from an adjustment to its horizontal hold. As she expressed herself delighted to be back, it became clear that the broad grin she was also wearing was to remain a fixture.

"I'd like to introduce my band," she began, leading her guitarist towards her bassist. "Alison this is Ged. Ged, Alison." Such light-heartedness seemed to surprise some of those gathered, fans schooled on her more politically direct material.

"I hear she's gone back to her roots on her new album," said one of the out-numbered men there. "I hope it's not all country." After an opening skirmish with electric pick-ups lasting no more than three numbers, it became clear the man was to be disappointed. Shocked and her band left the stage to a pair of mandolin players, called Dollar Bill & Mary. As the pair sang a bluegrass ditty, exhibiting more twang in their vowels than Duane Eddy has in his guitar, the roadies worked at converting the stage into a comic-book hillbilly set, stringing lanterns from the drum-kit and erecting a picket fence in front of the footlights. Shocked then emerged from a little wooden shack stationed stage left, already into her first costume change.

Now wearing a floral print dress and straw hat, she plunged into material from her new album, Arkansas Traveller. "The Arkansas Way is rocky and hard," ran the lyrics of one song. The music, however, was not. Shocked played mandolin, her guitarist metamorphosed into a banjo player and the pianist squeezed an accordion.

"They must be taking the piss," said the fan in disbelief.

But, although there was some incongruity in the hugely-muscled drummer tapping out a delicate rhythm on a triangle, there was nothing silly about it. The music reeked of verandahs, rocking chairs and good ol' boys, and soon the whooping, stomping atmosphere in the crush up front resembled a barn rave.

After half a dozen jolly, cotton-pickin' romps, Shocked disappeared into her wooden Portaloo again while the audience were treated to something you don't often hear at a rock concert, a banjo solo. She re-emerged wearing another horizontally-striped outfit, the electrics were turned up and she clipped through a selection from her rockier past, such as "Ride That Train" and "Little Sister". The change was engineered without any noticeable join, her blind pianist, for instance, was as happy taking Jerry Lee Lewis runs up his piano keyboard as he was hoe-downing on his accordion. She finished with "Come A Long Way", a track from the new album, which appeared to have everything a country-rock song could wish for: a singalong chorus, an insistent beat, poignancy, disappointment and endless geographical references.

The encores turned into an energetic celebration. In the first a fan was called up on stage for a mandolin lesson. In the second, several women were hauled up to dance. The third was an old song, "Graffiti Boy", about an incident of police brutality, topically dedicated to Rodney King. "I live in LA, and I just feel there ain't no justice," she said. And for the first time the smile slipped and she looked, well, shocked.

Barrowland, Glasgow, Scotland, 10 May 1992

The Herald, Glasgow, 12 May 1992

Michelle Shocked at Barrowland, Glasgow
By Johnnie McKie

Headlines for this one should read Going into Her 'Chelle. For when the delicate Ms Shocked shambled on to the stage with her band and mumbled a few greetings, her folksy charm seemed more suited to less public surroundings.

Yet the youthful audience, evidently more at home with Vic Reeves than Jim, were slowly being delighted by the melodic sounds of early singles like On The Greener Side and Anchorage. Then disaster struck.

Michelle invited her parents onstage to perform a hillbilly number. Such a tactic if employed by Wilson Phillips (Brian Wilson's and John Phillips's daughters) would be greatly appreciated. But this -- a country and western karaoke -- was asking for trouble. 'Chelle then returned with her band dressed in outfits last seen in Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza, and produced a lame half-an-hour of pantomime country with scarcely a yee-haw from the audience.

After this ramshackle diversion, the Shocked band donned less studied working clothes again to play a selection of tracks from the new Arkansas Traveller LP, but the unexciting new songs failed to stir the uncommitted.

If Ry Cooder were dead -- and thankfully he's not -- he'd surely be turning in his grave at this paltry imitation of country-rock. Finally Ms Shocked played (too many) encores, but at least included the potent If Love Was a Train from her strong acoustic debut LP Short Sharp Shocked.

Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, Los Angeles CA, 9 Jul 1992

Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1992

NOT DEAD, BUT NOT QUITE ALIVE, EITHER
Bob Weir And Rob Wasserman Display Particularly Intense Musical Personalities But They Lack Lyricism, Playfulness And Humor.
By Mike Boehm, Times Staff Writer

With highly skilled folkies Bruce Cockburn and Michelle Shocked in tow as opening acts, Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman launched a summer tour they've dubbed "Scaring the Children" Thursday night at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

Weir, the Grateful Dead singer-guitarist, and Wasserman, the free-lance instrumental virtuoso who hits his bass harder than our punch-less Anaheim nine can hit a ball, didn't get around to explaining the significance of their tour's name. In typical Dead fashion, the headliners said nothing whatsoever during their 75-minute set before several thousand blissful young Dead fans who were dressed in the usual tie-dye and peasant-dress regalia. A press release issued by the duo's publicist says they didn't want to go on merely billing themselves as Weir & Wasserman, because their names alone "sounded like a law firm."

You could see how Wasserman's approach to the upright bass might scare some children. For one thing, the streamlined, futuristic, six-string electric bass he used during most of the show looks like some device Darth Vader might employ to harm cute, furry Ewoks. For another, Wasserman favored an aggressive attack full of booms and vrooms and dissonant, plangent skids that gave his solos and fills something in common with a day at the drag strip.

(Wasserman, who also plays in Lou Reed's band, learned firsthand recently what it means to perform under really scary circumstances. The Los Angeles riots broke out the night Reed played a brilliant show at the Greek Theatre, making Wasserman an inadvertent Nero who had to bass-fiddle while a city burned.)

Weir's apocalyptic vision in the set-closing anthem, "Throwin' Stones," could be construed as scary, but the Dead kids were more delighted than afrighted, clapping to keep time, doing hoppy dances and shouting along enthusiastically on the "ashes, ashes, all fall down" refrain.

No, what was really scary about this concert was the thought that the Grateful Dead might one day retire, and Weir will decide to try a second career as a singer of lounge standards. His rendition of the Frank Sinatra tune "Witchcraft" was a grating horror, so tuneless it could have served as a Bill Murray-style sendup of the saloon-ballad mode.

But Weir, who is nothing if not earnest, wasn't trying to be funny. His voice hasn't a hint of lyricism, body or roundness. It's all hard, flat surfaces, austere and severe, declamatory and earnest, with an element of almost puritanical rectitude. That worked in some settings, but a ballad singer he ain't. With the Dead, Weir is balanced by the mellowing influence of wizened old creaky-voiced Jerry Garcia.

(It's verboten for Weir and Garcia to sing and play together in Irvine with the Grateful Dead, by the way. The City Council insisted that Irvine Meadows stop its annual Grateful Dead concerts a few years ago, after an overflow of ticket-less fans and overnight campers in the Dead's wandering caravan of followers caused traffic miseries and riled the neighbors. Irvine Meadows' Solomonic, but not nearly as lucrative, solution has been to split rock's most reliable touring cash cow in two: The Jerry Garcia Band arrives at the Meadows on Aug. 1.)

Weir and Wasserman both displayed particularly intense musical personalities. But they lacked other qualities, such as lyricism, playfulness and humor, that can make for a well-rounded show. They tackled some beautiful songs, such as Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece," and Weir's "Looks Like Rain." At such moments as those, one wished they were a trio, with a passionate, soulful and accomplished singer to help them do the songs justice.

At their best, Weir/Wasserman formed a commanding, physically bracing rhythm section. Standing shoulder to shoulder, or turning face to face, they were able to prod and play off each other in driving, forceful, extended passages.

The furtive, bluesy love song "Eternity" showcased their ability to communicate musically. After Weir had intoned the song's lofty sentiment, "Let's love each other through eternity," one looked for Wasserman to second the emotion with a solo running toward tenderness or soaring loveliness. Instead, he hurtled into the void on a noisy, unsettling excursion that recalled the spacey dissonance of the instrumental break in the Byrds' "Eight Miles High." The journey toward eternal love, the solo suggested, is a strange, hazardous space shot buffeted by existential asteroid fields that can tear such a tender capsule apart. When Weir started to sing again, the lyrical sentiment remained the same -- "Our love will never die" -- but his voice was charged with the desperation of a man who had understood the daunting import of Wasserman's solo.

Such excellent moments came often enough to make it worth bearing with Bob and Rob through their insufficiently melodious adventure.

Evidently, nobody told Michelle Shocked anything about scaring any children. Instead, she delighted them with her smiling, folksy presence, an array of strong and varied material, and an earthy and adept little string band that included her brother, Max Johnston, on fiddle and Allison Brown on banjo, dobro and guitars.

Shocked's between-songs chat kept you (or, as her Texas drawl would have it, "y'all") in her confidence while building connecting bridges between songs. After singing the wry "Making Trouble for the V.F.D.," Shocked explained that its tale of pre-adolescent pyromania was true -- well, almost. Then she followed with "Eddie Bonebrake," an edgy blues that cast the fun-loving firesetter from "V.F.D." in a darker -- and, according to Shocked, more truthful -- light. Eddie's father had been killed by lightning before his eyes, Shocked said in her intro, and the song, embellished by this mobile performer's effective body English, told the poignant tale of how he compulsively lit smoky fires -- maybe to signal his dad in heaven or maybe to blot out the sky that had struck him dead.

Shocked showed her political agitator side with another blues, "Graffiti Lies," managing to register righteous indignation over police brutality while keeping a sardonic sense of humor. But the highlight of her set came on more personal songs, such as the folk-pop tune "Anchorage," about an old and enduring friendship, and a stretch of tradition-rooted songs from her fine current release, "Arkansas Traveler." Those numbers took her from pretty Celtic airs to hard-driving bluegrass. The Deadheads let out a disappointed groan when Shocked didn't come back for an encore after her enchanting 45-minute set.

Cockburn, with his professorial mien, looked more as if he had arrived to instruct the children. Without being didactic, he did impart lessons in a set that was graceful, eloquent and passionately rendered. It played like an extended meditation that encompassed both a fallen world ruled by exploitative power and a visionary realm of transcendence and redemption.

Playing solo, Cockburn seemed less distant than he had while fronting his own band at Anaheim's Celebrity Theatre earlier this year. His nine-song set, including a well-earned encore, stayed away from some of the less-inspired material that intruded on that show.

"If I Had a Rocket Launcher," inspired by death-squad attacks in Latin America, said as much about Cockburn's skill as a composer and a guitarist as it did about his political passions. Playing reverb-drenched electric guitar, Cockburn enacted a drama with finger-work, using pulsating rhythms to portray the menace of a helicopter-borne death squad, the racing panic of flight among its intended victims, and, in sharp, clinching chords, the final resolve to resist.

All hands gathered for an evening-ending encore treatment of the Willie Dixon blues classic "Spoonful" -- Weir/Wasserman booming out tough rhythms, Cockburn inserting some twisting electric guitar lines, and Shocked, relegated to backup vocal duty behind Weir and Cockburn, having fun slapping her thighs in time and weaving like a happy kid in the middle of a game of dodge ball.

Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis MN, 14 Jul 1992

Star Tribune, Minneapolis MN, 15 July 1992

Guitarist Bob Weir And Friends' Acoustic Tunes Revive Memories
By Jim Meyer

Grateful Dead singer/guitarist Bob Weir and a few musical friends turned back time a bit during a short, strange show of acoustic music at the Orpheum Theatre last night.

Through his ongoing collaboration with bassist Rob Wasserman, Weir has tried to make creative space for himself outside the Grateful Dead tradition. But this program -- which included notable singer-songwriters Bruce Cockburn and Michelle Shocked -- did bring back memories of the days in the '60s when disparate but sympathetic groups would join together for loose-knit superconcerts at Winterland Ballroom or the Fillmore.

But apparently you can't go all the way back to the way it was. Even this bill filled with potential headliners didn't generate quite the draw it might have -- forcing the concert to be moved from the Civic Center Forum to the smaller Orpheum Theatre.

Aesthetically, that change was for the better because these small groups and soloists were more suited to a theater than a small hall.

The sales might be a reflection on Bob Weir, now on his third annual tour with bass guitar innovator Wasserman. It's debatable whether he's a singer you would consistently want to see in a live duo.

As a singer he is quite ordinary, possessing neither a strong natural range nor a clear individual style. When he's interpreting standards such as "Witchcraft," "Take Me to the River" or Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece," his faults are all the more evident.

Within a merry band like the Grateful Dead - who've made overambition a musical philosophy for decades - this mediocrity is acceptable, perhaps endearing. But left to his own with only bass accompaniment, Weir's musical experiment is almost amazing in its overextension. Fortunately, he's backed with no ordinary bassist. Though the term "revolutionary" is often overused in music, Wasserman has brought a strong depth and expressive power to rock bass like few others. With the invention of various customized six-string basses and his rugged attack on standard upright, he brings a sturdy jazz feel to modern rock.

In fact, Wasserman was the key to the finest moments of the Weir/Wasserman set. Beginning with his pure solo in mid-set, he swerved from an edgy redefinition of the typically soft "Over the Rainbow" into an interlude featuring bowed-bass, before swooping down to a floor-shaking workout on the riff from Willie Dixon's "Spoonful."

When Weir returned, "Spoonful" was the basis for an extended improvisation that better displayed Weir's strength. (The "Spoonful" motif was also the root of a final jam involving all three acts.)

Wasserman's interesting bass tones also enhanced Weir's best vocal moments. When Weir works with the mellower moods of his own repertoire, he doesn't need to prove himself anyone's equal, and a deeper, truer tone emerges.

This small-group get-together offered a return to the roots for Michelle Shocked. Her big break came when an English record producer recorded a solo acoustic set on a portable cassette machine at a folk festival in her native Texas (now available on "The Texas Campfire Tapes").

To her credit she's parlayed that fluke into a major-label record deal that's allowed her to record albums that bounce from standard folk-rock to big band jazz. On her new album, "Arkansas Traveler," she toured the country in a mobile recording studio, cutting sessions with her admired American music artists such as Pops Staples, Doc Watson and Gatemouth Brown.

Because of her casual affiliations with the protest movement, her obscure personal history and her ever-changing musical focus, it's been hard to see the real artist behind the ambitions.

It was hoped that this concert would unveil an unobstructed view of her personality, and that it did, for good and bad.

For starters, this exciting, comparatively new artist deserved better than opening up to a barren house at 7, but she dealt with the challenge rather strangely.

She attempted over and over to get a sing-along going on "Memories of East Texas." Not only is the song too personal to really invite audience participation, but there was hardly any audience at the time.

Then she performed her new single, "Come a Long Way," with mere bass accompaniment. Too bad, because it seemed much too early to waste a strong song on the sparse crowd, and this bouncy tune might have benefited from the larger group that eventually joined her.

When the group did join in, things really cooked. Alison Brown was consistently sensational on guitar, banjo, and an overturned steel guitar that she played with a bottleneck slide. The four-piece version of the group - featuring her brother Max on violin - got the crowd energized on "Prodigal Daughter (Cotton-Eyed-Joe)," but she responded to the audience's awakening by almost berating them for their disinterest. "This next song's about morphine. You might relate to it," she kidded.

The following versions of "On the Greener Side" and "The Secret to a Long Life" got the crowd on their feet, much to Shocked's pleasure, but she made it all into more of an ordeal than necessary.

This tour also gives valuable exposure to Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn, known for stinging topical songs as well as more broadly philosophical lyrics reflecting his Christian humanist outlook.

Sony Records is re-releasing all 19 of his albums dating back to 1971 - an unusually strong commitment to an artist's back catalog, and a testament to Cockburn's creative diversity and consistent quality.

His nine-song middle set featured many of his more famous and angry topical songs such as "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" and "Call it Democracy," but on new songs such as "Someone I Used to Love" and the opening instrumental "Train in the Rain," he proved to be an under-rated guitarist. His fluid, jazzy style and complex chord sequences were truly impressive.

All in all, with some of the bad vibes and the not-so-great music, it was not quite as groovy as the Summer of Love, but the selection of strong talents on the bill probably gave everyone in the theater a few things to cheer about.

Jim Meyer is a freelance writer from Minneapolis.

Silverado Theater, Boston MA, 7 Oct 1992

The Boston Globe, 8 October 1992

Shocked's Show Goes On, Despite Disputes
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff

The Silverado concert series got off to a rocky start last night. The club looked great -- with rows of chairs placed on the dance floor to enhance the concert setting -- but the show was sabotaged by disputes beyond the club's control. Headliner Michelle Shocked and her main opening act, The Band, feuded beforehand. The Band ended up not playing -- and the reasons are as varied as the plots on your average daytime soap opera.

No one wanted to talk on the record, but it appears that The Band did not want to wait around 90 minutes after their set in order to join Shocked for a finale. The tour has played six cities so far (out of a planned 28) and tension has built up over this issue, with Shocked taking it very personally, sources said. The blowup came yesterday afternoon. Depending on whom you talked to, Shocked gave the promoter an ultimatum that either The Band was off the show, or she was.

Shocked's camp denies the ultimatum and is still hoping The Band will be back on the tour, which lands at Carnegie Hall tomorrow. But it was an eerie scene last night, with whispered conversations in corners (The Band's Rick Danko even flitted through the room at one point, at a pace that would have impressed Olympian Carl Lewis), and a sense of total bafflement among the nearly 1,000 fans.

Amazingly, Shocked showed no ill effects from the day's emotional traumas. She and her four-piece band, including former Boston banjoist (and Harvard grad) Alison Brown, pumped out a foot-stomping blend of old-timey/bluegrass music, Western Swing and the kind of wonderfully instructive acoustic experimentation that marks her latest album, "Arkansas Traveler." There were even elements of cornpone humor akin to the "Hee Haw" TV show - all without any trace (or any mention) of the day's melodrama.

If anything, Shocked went out of her way to express contentment. "I'm so happy to be here tonight. I love you all. That's a goofy thing to say, but I really mean it," she said. It was a bit strange, but you got to give her credit for playing well and also overcoming a few glitches in the sound system.

Another opener, the ageless bluesman Taj Mahal, opened effectively, reviving archival country blues such as "Freight Train" and "Sitting on Top of the World," plus updating with a touch of burlesque: "Big Legged Mamas are Back in Style." The other opening act, Uncle Tupelo, was less successful, playing acoustically (as opposed to their rowdily electric Neil Young style) and not really pulling it off, though they redeemed themselves when they joined Shocked later on.

Carnegie Hall, New York NY, 9 Oct 1992

The New York Times, 13 October 1992

The Past Without Nostalgia
By Jon Pareles

With her band plinking and fiddling an old mountain tune, Michelle Shocked stood onstage at Carnegie Hall on Friday night and, like a square-dance caller, led the audience in "chair dancing." After telling the audience to lean left and right, forward and back, she instructed, "Put your hands in the air, and wave 'em like you just don't care" -- a ritual of hip-hop.

Ms. Shocked prizes history and heritage, but she has no fear of anachronism. Her opening song proclaimed, "When I grow up, I want to be an old woman," and her voice can take on the twang and quaver of an Appalachian grandmother, the slides and clarity of a Celtic singer, or the sultry insouciance of a blueswomen. Yet with all of her connections to musical roots, she doesn't treat the past as a nostalgic refuge or a quaint relic, but as an area for unsentimental investigation, for interrogation.

Her songs about the present are conversations and chronicles, full of homey details and gentle humor; "Anchorage" is simply a catching-up letter from a friend. Taking songs from the past, Ms. Shocked examines them for similar details, even if they're hidden. At Carnegie Hall, she described trying to figure out what lay behind well-known but enigmatic tunes, finding the story of an abortion in "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and morphine for wounded Civil War troops in "Soldier's Joy."

Those are two of the fiddle tunes that Ms. Shocked adapted, with her own lyrics, for her current album, "Arkansas Traveler" (Mercury). They're part of Ms. Shocked's heritage; she learned them from her father, Dollar Bill Johnston, who joined her onstage, along with her brother Max Johnston. On her current tour, Ms. Shocked leads a modified string band, including fiddle (Ray LeGere) and banjo or flat-picked guitar (Alison Brown, who plays with a traditional banjoist's poker face), and often without drums. In songs from earlier albums, though, the band brought an assured touch to Western swing and electric blues. Her one new selection, "Custom Cutter," was a Celtic-tinged song about a farmer nervously awaiting help for a make-or-break harvest.

Ms. Shocked's touring Arkansas Traveler Revue also includes the group Uncle Tupelo, which updates rural styles with modern pessimism, and Taj Mahal, who reanimates old blues songs with his own playful traditionalism; knocking out shuffles and boogie-woogie on piano or picking country-blues on guitar, he showed off a master's offhand syncopation and mercurial vocals. He returned during Ms. Shocked's set for "Jump Jim Crow," a ragtimey song about stereotypes of black entertainers: "Who is really the jigaboo?/Is it the white man, the white, talking that jive/Or the black man, the black, trying to stay alive?"

Obviously, Ms. Shocked has serious topics in mind, but she doesn't let them interfere with the pleasure of the music. "Arkansas Traveler" itself was a backdrop for corny jokes, like a vaudeville routine; "Over the Waterfall" is a tall tale about someone who shoots the rapids in a barrel, concluding, "It don't hurt you when you fall, only when you land." Like her traditional forebears, she tucks any anger or despair between the lines, not concealing it, but keeping it in perspective.

From the stage, Ms. Shocked said her albums so far have been tributes looking back to her models: Texas songwriters, swing (both Western and big band) and fiddle tunes. She has already gone far beyond imitation. And her abundant musical gifts, her light touch and her clear ambition promise even more as she moves forward into songwriting that she can call her own.

George Mason University, Fairfax VA, 21 Oct 1992

Washington Post, 26 October 1992

MICHELLE SHOCKED
By Mike Joyce

Michelle Shocked seemed a bit shellshocked when she performed at George Mason University Wednesday night. A tour built around the singer's latest album, "Arkansas Traveler," featuring the Band, Uncle Tupelo, Taj Mahal and her own group, had just "unraveled," she told the crowd, so that only Taj Mahal remained on the bill with her. She didn't offer much of an explanation, apart from alluding to a lot of "backstage drama," though her management later said the decision to pare down the lineup was hers.

Whatever the reason, Shocked seemed emotionally distraught at times, verging on tears not only when she discussed the tour but when she spoke of her obviously painful relationship with her mother. Throughout her two-hour set she punctuated her songs with rambling anecdotes -- some of them touching, some amusing, several others hopelessly convoluted.

But the songs -- and especially the applause they generated -- often lifted her spirits as she plucked out simple melodies on a electric guitar and occasionally sang with an old-timey purity and power. The best tunes, drawn from her first and third albums, included a poignant "East Texas Memories," an expanded version of "Anchorage," a wonderfully animated duet with Taj Mahal on "Jump Jim Crow" and a bittersweet "Prodigal Daughter." Still, the blues artist's opening set of finger-style guitar tributes to Etta Baker, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson, barrelhouse piano blues and robust sing-alongs was far more consistent and enjoyable, if by no means as odd.

The Palace, Hollywood CA, 7 Nov 1992

Los Angeles Times, 9 November 1992

A DOWN-HOME MICHELLE SHOCKED

If "Hee Haw" is ever revived for the MTV generation, there's a perfect host ready: Michelle Shocked. On Saturday at the Palace, Shocked made country corn out of the traditional mountain tune that provides the title for her latest album, "Arkansas Traveler," getting five audience volunteers on stage to engage in some down-home silliness.

But there was much more to the show than pickin' and grinnin' -- though Shocked was sporting a big grin throughout the evening. She explained that the show recapped her "trilogy" of albums laying out "where I come from, musically speaking." As she looked back on what she's done with her roots -- Texas singer-songwriter styles, swing music and mountain folk -- she seemed justifiably proud.

With three semi-acoustic sidekicks and some help from opening acts Taj Mahal and Clarence (Gatemouth) Brown, Shocked darted in and out of her various styles. Along the way, she joyously injected her own irrepressible personality and politics.

If her serious moments occasionally seemed pedantic and the silliness sometimes really silly, she can be forgiven, since both come from her genuine enthusiasm. And how can you fault someone who in one week goes from playing at the President-elect's celebration in Little Rock to getting a jaded Hollywood crowd to do some giddy square-dance steps en masse?

Hee haw, indeed.

-- Steve Hochman

"In Their Own Words", Rhythm Cafe, Santa Ana CA, 29 Jan 1993

Los Angeles Times, 1 January 1993

THEY'RE NOT AS GOOD AS THEIR WORDS
By Mike Boehm, Times Staff Writer

SANTA ANA -- The "In Their Own Words" concert at the Rhythm Cafe was pregnant with mistakes waiting to happen.

That dicey element is part of the excitement of this ongoing, occasional series of concert tours, in which accomplished songwriters are thrown together to make a show out of talking about their music as well as playing it. In an era when most concerts aspire to glitch-free efficiency, the "Words" tours offer a night out when you don't know what's going to happen.

The audience does have one pretty solid guarantee, however: When a show is in the hands of good songwriters, it's hard for it to go too far wrong. In terms of song quality and the level of individual performances, Friday night's show -- featuring Guy Clark, Joe Ely, Michelle Shocked and Allen Toussaint -- was strong indeed.

The performers in this foursome didn't know each other well, if at all. And, since the Rhythm Cafe show was only the second night of an 18-city tour, one wondered how well they'd be able to mesh, and how many of those potential goofs they'd be willing to risk against the possibility of striking a fresh creative spark.

The four played it conservatively for most of the two-hour, 20-minute session, concentrating on individual performance, with limited, low-risk musical interplay. Seated in a row on stage, the songwriters took turns until they'd gone through the line five times. Then they came out for an encore, and took the plunge with an attempt at full, four-way collaboration.

As such plunges go, what they'd intended as an improvised-on-the-spot blues number was a real belly flop. Singer-guitarists Ely, Clark, and, especially, Shocked didn't improvise much that was cohesive or even coherent. That left Toussaint, the New Orleans R&B master and pianistic wonder, to carry the "vamp in G" with some bawdyhouse piano improvisations of his own.

One suspects that by the end of the tour the four will be working well together with backing harmonies, rhythmic support and maximum exploitation of Toussaint's keyboard ability (his more than 30 years' experience as a record producer figures to make him particularly adaptable to other musicians' needs).

On night two, it was a little disappointing to watch Ely or Shocked silently mouth someone else's chorus lyrics instead of jumping in with wholehearted harmonies. It might have been better if they'd been somewhat more venturesome with vocal and instrumental interplay, even if it meant that more of those mistakes-in-waiting would indeed leap out.

Ely, who plays second-fiddle on guitar in his own band, did offer tasty, if nothin'-fancy solos and fills in support of songs by his fellow Texans, Shocked and Clark.

The show's most satisfying moment of collaboration came when Toussaint jumped in with barrelhouse piano on Ely's "I Had My Hopes Up High," making a boisterous rocker even more so. By the end, the two were smiling broadly, having ventured something new and seen it work.

What the show lacked in cohesiveness it made up in variety, with four very different personalities on display, along with four widely contrasting musical approaches.

Clark, a big man with a craggy visage, was droll and drawling, and not beyond directing some of his crusty humor at the evening's host, Danny Kapilian. (Kapilian, the "Words" tour manager, did a credible job as stand-in moderator for Billy Vera. He said after the show that Vera, a Los Angeles R&B bandleader, actor and talk show host, had to bow out because of a sudden change in the shooting schedule for a part he was playing on "Beverly Hills 90120." The explanation should have been given to the audience at the outset.)

At one point, the moderator asked Clark to explain some of the inner mechanics of his songwriting -- a question that implied writing songs is a logical, trial-and-error process, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Clark responded with some cranky, though not nasty one-liners, then played "How'd You Get This Number," a song full of absurd humor that clearly isn't the product of a highly rational mind. "How the hell you gonna explain something like that?" the singer mused when it was over.

Clark, whose style weaves folk and country (making him an influential forebear of such other fine Texas performers as Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett), excelled with a grainy, homespun storyteller's voice well suited to songs rich in dialogue, character, and setting. He supported himself on guitar with nimble, assertive finger-picking.

While emphasizing humor, Clark also registered with a couple of fervent songs, "L.A. Freeway" and "Come From the Heart" -- the latter, a Kathy Mattea hit written by Clark's wife, Susanna, and their friend, Richard Leigh, was his choice for the final round, in which the songwriters were asked to play a song they hadn't written themselves, but wished they had.

Ely provided the show's rock 'n' roll fire, strumming and belting his way through a series of rousing numbers before switching to pretty, wistful balladry in his outside choice, "If You Were a Bluebird," by his Lubbock, Tex. buddy, Butch Hancock. Asked to sing one of his hottest rockers, "Musta Notta Gotta Lotta," Ely demurred at first, saying he didn't think it would work without a rhythm section. "Anybody got a trash can lid?" Ely wondered, before plunging ahead.

The smallish but unremittingly enthusiastic audience did its share with robust clapping-in-time on the rockabilly stomp, while Ely did his best whooping Jerry Lee Lewis impression. We waited in vain, though, for Toussaint to kick in with the equivalent on piano, which would have been hot sauce on a thoroughly tasty bite of rock 'n' roll.

Toussaint has a reputation for holing up in his New Orleans studio and rarely venturing out on tour (the "Words" trek will be the longest of his 35-year career as a headliner). "I don't do this enough to feel comfortable; I'm suffering up here," he said, disarmingly, to the first Orange County audience he has ever faced. A sincere, quietly charming man, he managed to get in his share of funny lines during Q&A segments.

Toussaint's usually smooth, low-keyed vocals sounded tentative at times, and he strained when reaching for high notes. But it was a treat to watch him engage a white grand piano with a true master's aplomb.

His "Southern Nights" was bathed in the most fragrant, creamy tones anyone could coax from a keyboard, evoking warm, cheek-stroking breezes and the shimmer of full moonlight on the waters of a still bayou.

In a tribute to Professor Longhair, the patriarch of New Orleans R&B piano, Toussaint moved from classical flourishes to the trademark romping, bouncing syncopation that Longhair created. He finished the tribute with "Thank You Lord," the affectionate gospel ballad he wrote and performed for Professor Longhair's funeral in 1980.

As Toussaint explained, he is no stranger to writing songs to order, offering as evidence "Wrong Number (I Am Sorry, Goodby)," a winsome, hangdog ballad that he tailored for Aaron Neville 30 years ago. By the last round, when he offered a soulful reading of Bob Dylan's "Mama, You've Been on My Mind," Toussaint's level of comfort and confidence were clearly rising.

There's no shyness in Michelle Shocked, who was as wry as the others between songs, but went for darker musical hues than her counterparts. Her choices included two new, unrecorded original songs, and a fiery, a cappella version of Steve Goodman's Celtic-influenced anti-war folk song, "The Ballad of Penny Evans."

One of the new songs, which Shocked also performed in an excellent set with an acoustic band last year at Irvine Meadows, was a wailing, belting blues about her childhood friend, "Eddie Bonebreak." Supported by some rapid, buzzing lead licks from Ely that added to the intensity, Shocked sang about a boy whose father is killed by lightning, then turns to pyromania in an act of vengeance: he sends smoke skyward, "hoping God will choke."

Darker still was a recent composition, apparently called "Stillborn," which marshaled vivid rural imagery to describe a haunting day in the life of a midwife after she has delivered a dead infant. Even in the funny blues, "When I Grow Up," Shocked moved from humor to desperate intensity as she sang the refrain, "When I grow up, I wanna be an old woman" -- suggesting there's no guarantee the song's protagonist will make it that far.

At its best, the "Words" concept will allow ideas and opinions about music to fly back and forth across the stage as readily as the music itself. That sort of engagement, debate and repartee didn't emerge here, possibly because the moderator in this case was a guy who has to spend the rest of the tour with these people and couldn't prudently attempt the valuable role of instigator and provocateur. If a tad mannerly, this installment still let fans feel they were getting an up close, in-person, inside look at four musical personalities who are all worth getting to know well.

"In Their Own Words", The Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge MA, 13 Feb 1993

The Boston Globe, 15 February 1993

'Their Own Words': fun night of talk and tunes
By Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff

CAMBRIDGE -- The "In Their Own Words" singer-songwriter series took root about three years ago at the Bottom Line in New York. It has also spawned a road-show version, the third of which showed up Saturday night for two sold-out shows at the Middle East Downstairs: New Orleans master-of-all trades Allen Toussaint, folk/punk/feminist star Michelle Shocked, country-folk stalwart Guy Clark and self-described "new kid on the block" blues guitarist Sonny Landreth, who just took over for Joe Ely.

The idea is for these four musicians to play tunes, swap licks, talk about their craft and generally enjoy themselves in a less-than-formal setting. Toussaint, the legendary songwriter-pianist-producer-arranger, said Saturday that he accepted because "It's very much a non-pressure system. And it's good to be this close to other songwriters." Toussaint, one of the highlights, played "Happy Time," "Yes, We Can-Can," "From a Whisper to a Scream," "Brickyard Blues" and the new "Hanging Tough."

There was no sense of competitiveness during the two-hour early show. These people seemed comfortable in one another's presence, chipping in or laying back as the song demanded. Landreth was the MVP utility man -- "I've got Guy on one side of me and Alan on the other; I'm like in this bubble of awe," he said later; Clark was the bittersweet curmudgeon-genius; Shocked was the current "star" and vocal tour de force; and Toussaint had a gentlemanly aura that could hush the crowd and a boogie keyboard style that could bring it to a fever pitch.

One problem: Emcee Merilee Kelly of WBOS-FM sounded like a chirpy, giddy cheerleader. "Is it hard for you to be up here alone?" she burbled at Shocked. "That's kinda how I started," said Shocked, trying to be polite. Some members of the audience let Kelly have it with hisses and catcalls. Other bad audience manners: A few too many folks seemed not to realize the nature of the program -- equal billing, chat and music -- and screamed out for Shocked to sing more. Kelly did get one great response from Toussaint, as to whether he felt anyone gussied up his songs too much. "Oh, no," he said. "Anytime anybody wanted to dress it up or put a tuxedo or an evening gown on it was all right by me."

Much as parties seem to kick in after an hour, this gig caught fire in the second half. Shocked scored with "Anchorage" and wove in a story about how she and the friend named in the song fell out of touch and got reunited for Shocked's recent wedding via MTV; Toussaint's "Can-Can" was a pure delight, as he kept urging Landreth to pick up the tempo; Clark's songs about old friends and homegrown tomatoes made you want to reach out to the former and bite into the latter; Landreth's slide guitar work got you groovin'. "It's important," Landreth said later, "to invite people in. It's like jazz, or something -- it's the unknown that brings up the creative part."

"In Their Own Words", Birchmere Restaurant, Washington DC, 15 Feb 1993

Washington Post, 20 February 1993

SONGWRITERS' OWN WORDS
By Geoffrey Himes

"In Their Own Words," a concept launched by New York's Bottom Line, brings a handful of disparate songwriters together to talk about their craft and perform some examples. The edition that came to the Birchmere Restaurant for two shows Monday night included Texas storyteller Guy Clark, New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint, Texas folk singer Michelle Shocked and Louisiana swamp guitarist Sonny Landreth. Radio personality Mary Cliff of WETA-FM served as the moderator.

Clark talked about his troubles with titles (he had wanted to call "L.A. Freeway" "Pack Up All the Dishes"); Shocked spoke of her newfound love for classic black gospel music; Toussaint said that "in the land of syncopation, if there's anything consistent about us it's the inconsistency of where we put our beats"; and Landreth exclaimed that he has more songwriting heroes than he can count -- adding that he can't count all that high.

Shocked unveiled "Homestead," about a farm widow on the prairie, which might be the best thing she's written yet. All evening Landreth played slide guitar parts so breathtakingly that he once made Clark forget his own lyrics to "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train". Toussaint played some very funky piano on Landreth's rocking version of Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway." It was an evening of surprises and revelations, but the highlight was Toussaint's long, heartfelt monologue about his father, illustrated with piano phrases and climaxed with "Melody in C," a remarkable song he had never played onstage.

Earth Day concert, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD, 22 Apr 1993

Washington Post, 27 April 1993

EARTH DAY
By Geoffrey Himes

Scheduling a six-hour outdoor concert for an April night in Maryland shows a certain lack of respect for the environment, and Thursday's Earth Day concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion could have used some global warming. The crowd was given plenty of reason, however, to stand up and stomp by seven acts who played with lots of energy and, for the most part, good taste as well.

The show was almost evenly split between musicians who preached too much and those who didn't preach enough. Michelle Shocked complained about politicians who preach but then gave her own meandering sermons. When she stopped talking and started strumming her guitar, though, "Come a Long Way" and "Over the Waterfall" proved just how far she has come as a singer and songwriter.

Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett was uncertain whether to praise the Clinton administration for its progressive rhetoric or condemn the Democrats for their lack of action. When Garrett and his Australian band performed songs from their new album, the appropriately titled "Earth and Sun and Moon," they sounded like nothing so much as late-period Who, a hard-hitting band with good songs and an annoyingly operatic singer.

The two best musical acts of the evening were NRBQ and the Robert Cray Band, but neither made any connection to the concert's raison d'etre. Bluesman Cray sang and played the guitar as beautifully as ever, even if he hasn't found a way to vary his sound. NRBQ previewed two delightful songs, "Girl Scout Cookies" and "Over Your Head," from its next album, due this fall from Rhino. NRBQ also brought along two horn players from the Sun Ra Arkestra and transcended the concert's planetary limitations with a musical journey aboard Sun Ra's "Rocket Number Nine (Take Off to the Planet Venus)" that ended in the kind of cacophonous jam induced by the Venusian atmosphere.

Dances to American Music, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York NY, 1/2 May 1993

The Times, London, 7 May 1993

Shocked if not stunned
By Adrian Dannatt

Rock met dance in New York, when Mikhail Baryshnikov and Michelle Shocked topped Mark Morris's bill.

Given New York's cultural overload, there is only one way for producers to capture attention. Heap on the stars, build up the attractions, until an event becomes an absolute must-see. Thus it was with Mark Morris's Dances to American Music: a sold-out weekend of celebrity performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Not just two world premieres here, not only Mikhail Baryshnikov and Morris himself dancing, but also live music played by luminaries as varied as the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Michelle Shocked, as well as costumes by the hottest young designer in town, Isaac Mizrahi.

If the resultant glamour was almost too much Tama Janowitz chatting to Lou Reed, Park Avenue hostesses air-kissing it just proved the power Morris now wields as one of the few choreographers willing to put his energy and fame behind contemporary dance. Morris has been aided in this by the White Oak Dance Project, which he created with Baryshnikov in 1990. Here, members of White Oak shared the stage with Morris's own dance group.

As a choreographer largely inspired by his choice of music, Morris can be at a disadvantage. This was most evident in the first piece, the world premiere of Mosaic and Untitled to Henry Cowell's String Quartets Nos 3 and 4. The music was so beautiful and this rare performance so perfect, thanks to Ma's cello, that it seemed an unnecessary distraction to have dancers in unfortunate pastel ensembles by Mizrahi gliding around.

Of course, it was exciting to see Baryshnikov. The simple gestures hardly taxed him, but he demonstrated that rare ability for a dancer to do almost nothing, but do it stylishly. He lay on the ground, dirty bare feet waving at the audience (as if naked soles were the main difference between contemporary and classical dance), while the strings hummed: an insect trembling in its death throes. But Morris's aesthetic is inherently jolly and perhaps the best section was a jig, a sort of sea-shanty meets Peking Opera, danced with joyous energy.

Likewise the best part of the second world premiere, Home, was the ferocious stomping, tap-dancing hoedown performed by Morris and his dancers to the fast fiddle-playing of Michelle Shocked and the bass of Rob Wasserman. The punky Texan folksinger and Grammy-winning bassist stood at the side, the set stripped back to the bare bricks of the theatre, and the dancers in suitably rural russet tones.

But while the hoedowns were great fun and performed with infectious enthusiasm, the sung laments interspersed into the set were altogether less convincing. Putting live singing and dancing together is inherently dangerous and the dilemma of narrative dance was posed by the all-female ensemble acting out a sentimental ballad called "Yolanda". Shocked's voice was not at its best, and the wailing lament and flailing limbs of the dancers combined to embarrassing effect. Somehow, Morris's sensibility does not seem suited to coy Americana.

If Shocked's contribution was the most anticipated and least effective, the Three Preludes of Gershwin, played with a smoky, Tin Pan Alley charm by pianist Linda Dowdell, were the most impressive section of the evening. Danced on alternate nights by Morris and Baryshnikov, wearing black and white outfits with gloves that made the hands oddly outsized, they conjured a range of American references, from Mickey Mouse to Chaplin or even Michael Jackson, all with effortless grace and simplicity.

The last section, Grand Duo, to music by Lou Harrison, began with one of those portentous, symbolic tableaux vivants that recall the worst of New Age performance, a ring of dancers in silhouette pointing to the sky. This gesture was repeated throughout the piece which, with the multi-cultural, SF score by Harrison, began to seem like a visitation by aliens.

The extraordinary, surprisingly rare pleasure of hearing live music in a dance context should never overwhelm the choreography itself. It began to seem during this evening that Morris was less a great choreographer than a DJ with excellent taste in both music and musicians.

The Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge MA, 1 Jun 1993

The Boston Globe, 2 June 1993

Michelle Shocked jumps genres with glee
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff

They call David Bowie a chameleon. Well, he's got nothing over Michelle Shocked, whose genre-hopping has become a signature trait. She began as a folkie discovered over a campfire in Texas. She's since recorded swing jazz, country, Cajun, blues and fiddle music.

She's dubbed her latest genre "fonk" -- a hybrid of folk and funk, which last night also encompassed a liberal dose of good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll.

Shocked is mainly in town to assist the Mark Morris Dance Troupe, for which she wrote three new songs in a production presented by Dance Umbrella at the Emerson Majestic Theatre. But she couldn't resist booking five nights at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, where last night she unveiled her new band, the Casualties of Wah. It's so named because she's recently become obsessed with the wah-wah guitar pedal - a psychedelic throwback - which she and her new lead guitarist, Andy Kotz, employed to exhilarating effect last night before a sold-out house of Shocked fans.

Playing only their second gig together, Shocked and company had a late start because of several calamities, including the fact they had barely slept since performing their debut show in Miami the night before, then had their equipment arrive late and had their van towed. Not to mention that she rushed over to the Central Square club from the Mark Morris performance.

It was a comedy of errors that fortunately had a happy ending -- happier than the last time Shocked was in town, when she played the Silverado club in October and got in a dispute with her opening act, The Band, which ended up leaving the tour.

Shocked displayed new energy -- and new material -- last night, including "Mother, May I?," a funky tune about imploring her mother to dance, before her mother ends up teaching her a few dance steps of her own. It was a playful number in which Shocked dressed up in a feather boa a la Mae West. This festive tone was maintained for most of the show, especially when she reworked some of her older songs and emboldened them with a fresh rock attitude.

"I'd like to rearrange some old songs, which can only mean trouble," she said with a huge grin on her face, before launching into her "homeless trilogy" of "The Cement Lament" (given a double wah-wah treatment), "God is a Real Estate Developer" and "Streetcorner Ambassador." An added playful touch was playing the theme from "Shaft" during one interlude.

Rocking with a Fender Strat, she also breathed new life into her earlier songs, "On the Greener Side" and "33 RPM Soul." Her new quartet -- hand-picked through auditions in Los Angeles -- was excellent, including drummer Thaddeus Corea (Chick Corea's son), synth keyboardist Robert Rinderer and bassist Lynn Keller. She gave each a lot of room to jump in with fills -- and the result was some of her best genre-hopping yet.

Olympia Theater, Dublin, Ireland, 9 Apr 1994

The Irish Times, 14 April 1994

Michelle Shocked
Olympia
By Kevin Courtney

Michelle Shocked made two startling revelations at the Olympia on Saturday night. Firstly, she told the capacity audience that her record company had rejected the songs for her fifth album, Kind Hearted Woman, forcing her to seek an independent manufacturer and oversee the distribution herself. Secondly, she admitted that it wasn't her who started those fires she sang about on her Short, Sharp Shocked album it was a guy named Eddie, who did it because he wanted to choke God to death for killing his daddy with a bolt of lightning.

She may not be the fire brand we thought she was, but Michelle Shocked is certainly unquenchable, and her righteous anger remains undimmed. In Graffiti Limbo she sings about a young black graffiti artist who dies in prison under suspicious circumstances, leaving nothing to the audience's imagination concerning the manner of his death; and in Cold Comfort she freezes the blood with the tale of a drunken driver who kills an innocent person. You can almost feel the beer elbows hesitate as she sings "Heavy drink was on his breath/her death was on his hands".

Resplendent in long hair and long brown dress, Shocked seemed deceptively waif like, but her voice and delivery were as strong and sassy as ever. When she rocked, as in (Don't You Mess Around With) My Little Sister, her voice bore a cracked similarity to that of fellow Lone Star, Maria McKee, but it was during her gentle, poignant pictures of life and struggle that her true tones really rang out.

Shocked was joined by Fiachna O'Braonain and Peter O'Toole for much of the show, and the two Flowers added a fragrant backing to Shocked's fertile folk/rock.

House of Blues, Los Angeles CA, 17 Aug 1994

Los Angeles Times, 19 August 1994

MICHELLE SHOCKED DISPLAYS MATURITY AT HOUSE OF BLUES

About seven years ago, Michelle Shocked emerged as a precocious, political East Texas folkie devoted to the power and purity of songs and the stories they can tell. After side trips into jump blues and string-band experiments, she's now returned to her beginnings.

On Wednesday at the House of Blues, she showed that she's no longer a sly kid, but a mature artist bearing songs full of complex, achingly personal narratives. The first part of the show was taken up largely by the 10 new, unfamiliar songs from her self-released "Kind Hearted Woman" album, which is only being sold at her shows.

The fans who packed the club embraced the new material, a moving song cycle of loss and redemption. With able aid from guitarist Fiachna O'Braonain, bassist Peter O'Toole (both members of Ireland's Hothouse Flowers) and drummer Cedric Anderson, she gave disarming, natural readings of the new material, followed by a frisky, generous set of audience requests.

As charming and intriguing a performer as she's been in the past, this finally seemed to be the real Shocked on stage. That doesn't mean she's settled down, stylistically speaking: She's currently working on a new album with New Orleans funk-soul master Allen Toussaint.

STEVE HOCHMAN

Mean Fiddler, Dublin, Ireland, 1 Jul 1995

The Irish Times, 4 July 1995

Not surprising now, Ms Shocked
Michelle Shocked - Mean Fiddler

By Kevin Courtney

Watching Michelle Shocked onstage at Dublin's Mean Fiddler on Saturday night, it's hard to believe that the girl-next-door type with the bobbed hairstyle and the brown evening dress used to be a skateboard punk, but, as the Texan campfire queen assures us during Anchorage, she did once sport a mohawk and a nose-ring.

Rebellion has always been integral to the protest songs of Michelle Shocked, and though some might compare her with that archetypal sweet strummer, Melanie, Shocked has always had more in common with