Review: Ladies & Gentlemen! Carole J. Bufford... Expresses Her Excesses Within Control With POETS AND PICKERS at Birdland

To See And Hear Her Is To Experience A Hurricane Of Sound, Style, And Sensuality

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick, your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you all the T!

To say that Carole J. Bufford has style, my dahlings, is akin to saying the Pacific has water. She has oceans of style mixed with the stage presence, musical skill, and vocal pipes to bring it all together in a truly remarkable ginger package. With her POETS AND PICKERS show Monday night, Bufford was, as the saying goes, BOFFO at Birdland. Taking the stage in an elegant dark green velvet jacket - discreetly taped in place to her bare chest - black leather pants and perfectly selected jewelry accents, La Bufford's intense connection to her song, her performance, and her audience gave a kind of "lit-on-fire" feel to Kristopherson's usually languid SILVER TONGUED DEVIL album opus, THE PILGRIM-CHAPTER 33. One could easily hear in her voice what she later confirmed in her talkie bits... Carole is a country gal. Hailing from Lincolnton, GA population... really almost nonexistent, Bufford, for all her refined elegance, leans in on her southern roots when the C&W requires L&P (Lilt & Power). While there ARE renditions of standards by poets like Cole Porter, Lionel Bart, and Irving Berlin (CJB makes a real meal out of YOU'd BE SURPRISED) it is the PICKERS portion of her performance where the lady really soars. Her jamboree style country caterwaul on the John Prine protest poem, YOUR FLAG DECAL WON'T GET YOU INTO HEAVEN ANYMORE, conjured up images of pickup trucks and bubbas with beer while her fully present acting on Randy Newman's Love Story/You & Me made everyone certain she had a silent scene partner she kept transfixed with her eyes and the rawness of her emotions. Add to that the almost Fosse-like movement of her arms and body and one might've expected a bowler hat and white gloves to be handed her as the number progressed.

On the topic of the lady's acting, it must be said that intensity layered with a strong sense of theatricality is the place where CJB lives. At first one might think it's a lot, but really, as the headline above says, it is excess within control. A beautiful kind of torrent of feeling, and emotion does happen as she delves into the feelings and emotions of her music, but it is the kind of force-of-nature work that insists without overpowering. It is the kind of WOW factor that, when properly balanced and mixed in the gut of a consummate singing actor, can thrill you at the same time that it moves you. It was no surprise to find out the lady is a Liza fan and her rendition of Cole Porter's MISS OTIS REGRETS brought all of her well-polished facets to the fore as she swung from veddy, veddy proper verse explanations of Miss O's reasons for bagging on dinner to a country-fied wail on the song's choruses and back again. Her mournful but forceful story-telling of a life missed and expectations lost on Prine's ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY moved yours truly to tears and her character study on Lady Liza's THE CIRCLE, a French song adapted by Kander & Ebb for LIVE AT THE WINTER GARDEN, gave real depth and meaning to the ladies of the streets with bigger dreams they know will never come true.

In short, Carol J. Bufford is an Actress with a capital A and one must strap in and take the ride she herself so carefully constructs, arranges (with Peter Calo - her silver fox guitarist), and performs for all to F-E-E-L. A word must also be said here for the subtle rhythmic support of Chris Marshak who makes it all happen with, what looked like, a minimalist percussion setup. Finally, Carole J. Bufford POETS AND PICKERS enlivened the main room of Birdland in so many ways that her full 17 song setlist left all in attendance wanting more, so much so that the half of the house that did NOT stand to ovate after song 16 joined the rest after her well deserved and insisted upon encore. So, Bobby has NO CHOICE but to give this ginger a full...

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows

Keep up with CJB in the web-o-sphere...

Her Webby Is Spun: HERE

Watch Her On The Youtubes: HERE

Check Out Her Insta-Pictograms: HERE

Tweet Her On The Twitters: HERE

Ande Followe On Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

All Photos By That ADORABLE - STEPHEN MOSHER

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