Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

The last time I saw Arlo Guthrie perform live was at a concert with my mother in the early 1990s. He shared the stage with Pete Seeger at Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota's campus. His hair is a little shorter now, but still shockingly white, not unusual for a guy who's about to turn 62 this summer.

I was fortunate to snag primo seats, in the middle of the second row, to catch Arlo Guthrie last night live at the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento. While my husband snatches up season's tickets to Mondavi, I subscribe to the Crest's email updates. This means that I typically get word of an upcoming show before anybody else and can immediately go online to buy tickets before the rest of the public.

My husband dragged me to the Mondavi Center for Performing Arts last week to see a show that consisted of musicians playing mostly instrumentals while the audience viewed a series of portrait photographs. It was called the Disfarmer Project, named for photographer Mike Disfarmer. The photos were of people who lived in Arkansas during the Depression through World War II. The performance was almost 2 hours long. I can't say I was overly energized and would have considered taking a nap, but with my eyes closed I wouldn't have been able to see the photographs, so I kept my eyes open. But the bottom line is I can spend about an hour looking at somebody else's photo album, and then I begin to lose interest. Imagine if somebody invited you over to their home for dinner and afterward showed you a two-hour long video of just music and photos. I think you'd eventually tire out, too.

But Arlo Guthrie was nothing like the Disfarmer Project. The show was invigorating. He was born July 10, 1947 in Coney Island, New York. Like most people of a certain age, some of us can't exactly remember our age at times. Arlo talked about going to Woodstock in 1967, and said he was 19. I was 15 at the time, and he's 5 years older than me, so he must have been 20. Pot will do that to you. But you know what Robin Williams says: if you can remember the '60s, you weren't really there.

Arlo's Lost World Tour included new music as well as older songs. He credited Leadbelly, Hoyt Axton and Steve Goodman, among other musicians, for the influence each had on his life and performed some of their songs as well. Of course, everybody knows that "City of New Orleans" was written by Steve Goodman, and it's probably the song he's most remembered for except the song, thank goodness, that he didn't sing (Alice's Restaurant).

He brought his son Abe to play keyboards. Directly behind Abe were three unidentified women. I asked my husband if the back-up singers could be Arlo's daughters, but he disagreed. Well, the middle one looked just like Abe, and the one on the left had Abe's hair. I'm going with my belief that they were indeed Arlo's daughters. A web search shows they were probably Cathy, Annie and Sarah Lee.

The rest of the band consisted of a lead guitarist, bass player and drummer.

Most of the audience at the Crest were fans over the age of 60. But when you figure Arlo has enjoyed a 40-some year career, that makes sense. Although I'm almost 57, I felt like I was quite possibly the youngest person there, except for the two little kids whose parents kept them up past their bedtime.

Watching Arlo perform was like being part of the great American folk culture, reliving the last four decades. His dad, Woody Guthrie, far as I'm concerned, is the greatest American folk hero there ever was. I never get tired of singing along to This Land is Your Land. And when the show ended, I was sorry to see Arlo leave the stage.

The Crest Theatre is a fabulous concert venue. Small and intimate so no matter where you sit, you're likely to have a good seat.  It was built as a vaudeville theater in 1912, remodeled in 1946 and restored again to the tune of a million bucks in 1995. Here are a couple photos of the Crest Theatre in Sacramento:

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, coming in June 2009.

OK, I didn't really fall asleep, I just felt like I was sleeping or perhaps wished I was sleeping, all snug and warm in the comforts of my own multi-cat infested bed instead of sitting at Mondavi Center in Davis to see the Punch Brothers. That's not to say the Punch Brothers are awful, because they have tons of talent, mountains of talent, Grammy-awarded talent bigger than the state of California, but they don't put on a spectacular show.

The musicians are Chris Thile (from Nickel Creek) who plays mandolin; Gabe Witcher, fiddle; Chris Eldridge, guitar; Noam Pikelny, banjo; and Paul Kowert, bass. My husband and I were discussing what kind of person plays the mandolin but not guitar. Sure, you say, a fiddle is a small instrument, too, but it's loaded with more testosterone. That long bow could do double duty as a saber sword. Think Star Wars.

For me, it was like watching Tom Hanks in the movie "Big" chomping down on a miniature ear of corn at the salad bar. It seems out of proportion. Made me wonder how come Rod Stewart went downhill after Maggie May? I'll tell you why, because Do Ya Think I'm Sexy and Hot Legs ruined everything for Rod Stewart.

Punch Brothers played a four-movement chamber suite called "The Blind Leaving the Blind." My husband says it was written during Thile's turbulent divorce. It was agony. Depressing. Punctuated by poly rhythms that made me want to punch somebody. It was also 43-minutes long.

Their first number was most likely the best, followed by Ophelia, by The Band, for second place. Let's just say that Ophelia was never my favorite take on that '70s album by The Band: Northern Lights - Southern Cross. It's mostly loud screaming into the mike. Sort of disrupts the whole tempo of the set.

I might have enjoyed the concert more if I had been sitting closer to the stage instead of the nose-bleed section, or perhaps didn't have a belly full of filet mignon, spring asparagus and scalloped potatoes. We had been planning to go out for dinner on Valentine's Day, but I had been out showing homes in East Sacramento all afternoon and didn't feel like fighting the swarming crowds in downtown Sacramento after the 2009 Amden Tour of California bicycle race. So, we ordered take-out from the Riverside Clubhouse in Land Park and dined by candlelight at home.

Now, if I was listening to the Punch Brothers while I was working out on the elliptical or cleaning house, I would thoroughly enjoy the music -- what's not to like about bluegrass -- but watching them in concert, well, I would have rather been giving my cat a bath.

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, coming soon to a bookstore near you.

Photo: Mandolin, Big Stock Photo

 

My husband and I had the pleasure last Wednesday of attending the Mavis Staples show at the Mondavi Center in Davis, California. If you're reading this and you're not from around here -- here being Sacramento -- you are in for a treat if Mavis Staples comes to your town. Some of you of a certain age will remember the Staple Singers from the 1950s and 1960s, and already know what a treasure, a blessed honor it is to hear Mavis belt out her heart.

She's part soul (R&B), part rock-and-roll and part gospel. I am particularly attracted to her music because her roots in the Civil Rights movement remain strong. She was a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King, for crying out loud, and performed concerts for him; she's a walking American icon and integral to history in America.

Mavis opened her first show in 2009 in Davis, California, with "For What It's Worth," a 1967 song written by Stephen Stills and performed back then by the Buffalo Springfield. You know how it goes: "Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear." She followed with "Down in Mississippi," and hearing those sultry Southern blues had me believing she was actually born in Mississippi. But I believe she was born July 10, 1939 in Chicago. Her father, "Pop" Staples, on the other hand, was born in Mississippi.

About halfway through the show, Mavis removed her shoes. It must have been difficult for a woman of her age and stature to stand in high heels for such a long time; I know I couldn't do it. She just laughed and said she felt at home on that stage, so it was OK to kick off those heels, and it was certainly OK with the audience. We were all mesmerized by her performance.

Then she plunged into her hit from the early 1970s, "Respect Yourself." From my perspective, it seemed a bit out of place, delivering that message to the mostly white, over 40, liberal crowd at Mondavi Wednesday night. But all of us need to remember that message at various points in our lives. In the middle of that number, Mavis spelled out the word r-e-s-p-e-c-t and then chuckled, "Oh, no, I ain't gonna mess with Aretha," as though Aretha Franklin might have been sitting in the audience and ready to grab the microphone away from her. But I know what she means, and I suspect you do, too.

Mavis brought along her sister, Yvonne Staples, for back-up along with Donny Gerrard and Chavonne Morris on background vocals. Three other guys rounded out the band: Rick Holmstrom on lead guitar, Jeff Turmes on bass and Stephen Hodges on drums. The most spectacular and talented by far absolutely was Rick Holmstrom. Holmstrom made his guitar sing on a level comparable to Jimi Hendrix. It blew me away.

One of my favorite protest songs of all time is "We Shall Overcome," and I would have traded the commission on my last two escrows to have heard her perform that song, but Mavis did one even better: "We Shall Not Be Moved." She talked about walking into a restaurant in the South in the 1960s with a group of friends and being ordered to leave. The waitress refused to serve them. But they locked arms and began to sing We Shall Not Be Moved when the police arrested them. It put a lump in my throat and brought tears to my eyes when the familiar refrain filled the Center for Performing Arts at Mondavi. Probably because these aren't just stories to me.

Did you know that the Staple Singers were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999? They were called "God's greatest hit-makers." One of the encore numbers had the audience standing, clapping and singing along to "I'll Take You There." It's one of those feel-good numbers that resonates.

Just like Mavis Staples. She crawls under your skin, ever so delicately, and reminds you that we're all part of the same world and responsible for passing on that message. Don't ever give up the fight for equality and human rights.



The Short Sale Savior, coming to a bookstore near you in February.

Photo: Mondavi Center for Performing Arts in Davis, CA by Big Stock Photo

Looking through our schedules last month, my husband and I discovered we were holding tickets for two performances on October 22nd. One show was Laurie Anderson's Homeland Tour at the Mondavi Center in Davis. The other was Kris Kristofferson at the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento. Between the two, I gravitated toward Laurie Anderson, but the truth is we saw her a couple years ago and, she is performing in Berkeley this Friday.

We were lucky that an associate in my office agreed to take the Mondavi tickets from us, and my husband was able to score tix for the Berkeley show (I'll be in Las Vegas at an About.com conference), so Kris Kristofferson it was. Besides, Kristofferson is getting up there in age, he's 72, and Laurie Anderson is 61. Sometimes you've got to choose the older artist just in case he or she won't be around much longer, if you know what I mean.

I love the Crest. It's a great venue to see a concert, well laid out, small and intimate. Plus, because I am a subscriber, we got terrific third-row seats. I sat down next to a woman who asked me how I heard about the show. She seemed disappointed that it wasn't much advertised. Well, how did she get tickets for the third row, then, I asked. Turns out her son is in a movie with Kris Kristofferson. What a small world. Then she asked me how I knew any of his music since I was obviously in my 30s. LOL. I don't think she was wearing her glasses.

When I mentioned to a client yesterday that we were going to see Kristofferson, he asked me what kind of show it was. I had to laugh, saying he wasn't even born yet when A Star is Born was released in 1976, although it's likely my client caught it on cable somewhere. I read that Kristofferson once said that working with Barbra Streisand cured him of doing movies, but that didn't stop him from making the financial disaster, Heaven's Gate. It seemed strange to explain that Kristofferson is basically a writer, responsible for such songs as Me and Bobby McGee and Sunday Morning Coming Down, and that he performs his own songs, something he didn't do early on his career.

During the show, a young woman with long blonde hair rushed up to the stage, bent over, threw her hair to the floor and raised her arms in homage to Kristofferson, sort of a worshipping gesture reminiscent of Wayne's World. Then she blew kisses left and right and dashed back to her seat. That isolated act of admiration, I believe, expressed the sentiment of the entire audience.

Even though Kristofferson didn't hit very many notes on key, lost a bit of rhythm here and there, and abruptly ended every single song he performed, nobody cared. When he sang the last line of each song, he simply stopped playing guitar. There were no lingering guitar strokes, extra chords or stunning conclusion, sort of like his life, I imagine.