Staff Editor on October 3rd, 2019

0

It is easy to be drawn to Joshua Tree. It has a mysterious vibe and emotional depth to it, a duality represented by a glorious natural environment and an arts scene that punches way above its weight class. Perhaps this is why world class acts regularly go out of their way, taking a lonesome desert road to an oversized BBQ shack called Pappy & Harriet’s.

Wednesday night was no different, as the locals were treated to what could be best described as a very interesting art project, Mercury Rev’s‘ reimagining of Bobbie Gentry’s 1968 Southern Gothic masterpiece “The Delta Sweete.” While the album features contributions from 13 female vocalists, the sultry and smoky voice of Norwich’s Beth Orton was tasked with the heavy lifting on this tour.

Orton was a stellar choice, a singer’s singer, she was in possession of sublime phrasing, emoting through each song with just enough chameleon to keep things interesting. Her fine form was matched by the lads of the Rev. They too understood the subtleties of these songs, and with Orton consciously choosing not to Xerox the other vocalists, they were able to perform the Jedi mind trick of doing a live reinterpretation of their interpretation of the original. Grasshopper (Sean Mackowiak) was in his usual guitar slinging form, leading a nuanced charge that included the tasteful use of flute and clarinet. Mercury Rev’s sonic reverberations moved the typically stoic Orton into impassioned territory. She was clearly enjoying herself. The set was sans any other material, except Orton’s pleasing cover of the Ronettes’ “I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine,” which closed the show.

On the album, released earlier this year, Mercury Rev featured a who’s who of songbirds from across the musical spectrum. Orton, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star), Phoebe Bridgers, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Margo Price, Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), Susanne Sundfør, Marissa Nadler, Carice van Houten (yes, GOT’s Melisandre can sing as well as do witchcraft) and a gorgeous May/September duet with Vashti Bunyan with Kaela Sinclair (M83) all appear, taking individual turns on coaxing new life out of Gentry’s opus. The resulting album sounds like being wrapped in a warm blanket in your favorite chair, sipping hot cocoa spiked with rum, while cold rain taps on the roof in rhythm to your badly broken heart.

In February, the band released another track from those recording sessions, Erika Wennerstrom‘s (of Heartless Bastards) haunting version of “Louisiana Man.” Wennerstrom opened Wednesday’s concert with a stirring set largely drawn from her poignant 2018 release “Sweet Unknown.” The evening’s lone disappointment was that she didn’t join Mercury Rev onstage and spell Orton for a song.

Mercury Rev has always been that band that carries hipster cred to the extreme. Undoubtedly somewhere, there is a pristinely moustached guy in a Pendleton and suspenders intensely deconstructing their seminal 1998 release “Deserter’s Songs” to a female hostage who is praying that a trap door opens beneath her. Yes, they inspire that level of abuse. Art school boys by way of Buffalo, they began as film school noodlers, eventually graduating into psychedelic indie superheroes. Never quite landing on their feet in the States, they conquered Europe to the point where nearly everyone forgot they were originally from New York.

Bobbie Gentry was a trailblazer of the late ’60s, one the first female artists to write and produce her own material, pretty much unheard of in that era. This woman was a dynamo, making her own clothes, designing her own stage sets, and hiring her own band. Best known for her international smash “Ode to Billie Joe,” Gentry had a meteoric career that burned brightly with seven albums in a five-year span. In the early ’70s, she made the move to televised variety shows and then the Las Vegas circuit. By 1981 she had made the firm decision to fade from public life. She has not performed since then and presently lives in Memphis, Tenn.

||| Live: “The Delta Sweete” by Mercury Rev with Beth Orton (w/ Marissa Nadler opening) play the Palace Theater in Los Angeles tonight. Tickets are still available here.