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Review: Amy LaVere at the Mohawk
An early evening rain come and gone affected Amy LaVere in more ways than one Saturday night at the Mohawk.
“I love Austin,” the Memphis native said after opening her set with “Overcome,” a waltz about leaving it all behind from her dreamy sophomore album “Anchors & Anvils,” “but my bass doesn’t like this humidity — and neither does my hair.”
The bass in question was the upright with the bass (as in fishing) sticker on it that towered over her petite frame. According to her promo poster on the club’s walls, she can triple-slap it like “Willie Dixon on steroids,” a guarantee supplied by her producer, Jim Dickinson, who’s worked with Aretha, Dylan, and the Stones.
LaVere may have gotten her chops from slapping guys around, if songs like “Killing Him,” with its “killing him didn’t make the love go away” line, were any indication. Then again, her voice, a more sedate version of Dolly Parton’s, was too sweet and her demeanor too coy to make you believe she’s capable of such foul play.
She was rounded out by drummer Paul Taylor, who wrote the cleverly phrased song “Pointless Drinking,” which she dedicated to headliner Langhorne Slim, and guitarist Steve Selvidge, whose liberal soloing on “That Beat” and “People Get Mad,” among others, compensated for the absence of gypsy violin, mandolin, Wurlitzer, and the other instruments that lend an exotic air to the CD version of her jazz-inflected country.
LaVere has proven herself more than just a one-trick pony with acting roles in “Black Snake Moan” and the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line.” It seems the only thing keeping her from triple-threat status is an appearance on “Dancing with the Stars.”
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