It was supposed to be a concert, but it unfolded like a character study. The first: a fiery black sheep who embraced her upbringing with every note, who lamented her tragedies as if she were performing a grandiose opera. When she looked out and said, "Hi, I'm Martha Wainwright", it had the same tone as a elementary school art teacher, not knowing if kindness and apology were to be extended in equal measure. Such traits could not avoid being endearing and almost approachable.
The other: a headliner, a jazz princess, almost ghostlike from a distance. Every trade magazine likes to say she sings like Billie Holiday and plays guitar like Django Reinhardt. They talk of her Parisian grace wrapped in the pale face of a Brooklyn native who waited long enough between her first and second albums to make one wonder if she was coming back.
Both women came with baggage but neither left with even a parasol. Wainwright, especially, who talked about her beginning with Rufus, Loudon and her extended family of musicians and the legacy they instilled in her. When she slid into her folksy six-string and opened her set with "Factory" there was little frame of reference for anything she was about to do. Her voice soars with Dylan-esque prose but drops heartbreakingly and frighteningly without warning or any comfortable transition.
But those are just the more orderly lyrical passages. During moments of high emotional clarity she swings her hips and bends the tips of her white boots to the floor, unable to keep words in her skin while trembling under their weight. How that voice and those knees have managed to live together without warring more violently is a miracle. There is a fascinating and passionate demeanor about the way Wainwright plays original pieces and standards. In her throat "Bye Bye Blackbird" loses its identity as a pedestrian piece done by a thousand aging starlets and becomes the dreamy lament it was always designed to be. Her original songs are lyrically strong enough to feel like diary passages, grainy and crude in detail but assembled into something sweet yet unorthodox, like putting honey on pancakes. After briefly debating the wisdom of finishing up her set with signature piece "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole" in front of a relaxed and obviously middle-aged crowd, she decided to channel the political spirit of Saturday's Operation Ceasefire anti-war concert. Shouting out the song's desperate anger, Wainwright screamed, "This is dedicated to Mr. Bush" to scattered but vocal cheers among the crowd at GW's Lisner Auditorium.
Peyroux was not the firebrand of her opener but possessed the same degree of strength, channeling it with the type of minimal effort that comes with grace. However, there is nothing detached about a woman who covers the swaggering cool of Patsy Cline or the grassroots laments of Hank Williams with the power of restraint and the select instincts not often found in interpretation.
Yes, Peyroux's songs have the appearance of submissiveness, expressing weepy longing and simple contentment. But there is more to them than that. For every soft swing piece like "Don't Wait Too Long" there is a nudge to a place of soul and even wisdom. The jazz in her voice does indeed evoke the spirit of Billie Holiday, but not the sentiment. And her guitar playing is scant enough to keep proper cadence with the cream of her voice without grabbing the same virtuosity as Django. Peyroux is the graduate course for European style pop and light contemporary swing. Her moments of inspiration are often so deliberate but quiet that they induce a fair amount of awe when shown how obviously cool it is to bust a blues riff at the time when it'll hit hardest. When letting down one's hair can be seen as delicate but brilliant, it's clear it's something special.
The story of Madeline and Martha is far from long, nor is it filled with any sort of high drama. Instead it plays like a beautiful roadsign on the way to a wedding: part of the scenery, but not overwhelming to the destination.
