Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time | Grace Holloway | Open

[deepbluerevue]

Who: Grace (deepbluerevue) and Open
What: Performances and rehearsals around Pumpkin Hollow
When: December 1st to 19th
Where: Pumpkin Hollow’s performance venues and other

Tillie Brown was a dancing fool / Spent her time in a dancing school

All around Pumpkin Hollow, on community boards and lampposts, fastened with tacks and wheat paste, you’ll find neatly-printed flyers with drawn illustrations of singing faces, microphones, and music notes. (If you’re familiar with Gerry Keay or Mayor Poe’s art styles, you’ll find the illustrations familiar.) The text reads:

To all Instrumentalists resident in Pumpkin Hollow

GRACE HOLLOWAY

SINGER OF THE BLUES

Seeks Musicians as Fellows In Performance

In Particular those with experience in Accompaniment

Desired Instruments:

• Piano • Clarinet • Cornet • Trombone • Violin • Alto Sax • Baritone Sax • Tuba • Upright Bass • Drums •

OTHER INSTRUMENTS POTENTIALLY WELCOME

Contact

GRACE HOLLOWAY

By sending stone or posted mail

Or attend a performance by the vaunted chanteuse at

• The Oak and Iron • Empty Pockets • La Veritable Dragon Rouge •

All Inquiries Welcome

December 16:55

When the band would play / Tillie would start right in to sway

There aren’t all that many venues in Pumpkin Hollow, so it’s pretty easy to catch a show by a woman who seems to be gunning for every gig she can grab.

Grace Holloway appears at every gig in a tidy peaches-and-cream ensemble, a snug jacket over an ankle-length dress and dainty pumps. Atop her coiffed updo, she wears an unidentifiable hat. It might be a cloche, but it’s hard to say. Though she doesn’t have jewelry and her cane is utilitarian, her makeup is always done perfect: red lips, brown eye-shadow, black mascara, lined brows.

At the Oak and Iron or La Veritable Dragon Rouge, you’ll find her perched on a tall stool, singing alone or with a local fiddler, performing tunes easy to eat and chat over. She goes for an hour or more without any sign of vocal fatigue, which might be surprising if you’ve seen her put away a pack of cigarettes. Balancing her attention seems to come without any effort at all, catching the eyes of people in the audience with a wink one minute, and diving deep into a song’s feeling in the next. The numbers range from down-tempo to mid, seamless and smooth, usually finishing with an up-tempo march.

At the Empty Pockets, her numbers get a little more attention-grabbing, her crowd-engagement a little more energetic. She talks in between each song, joking with the audience, teasing the loudest listeners, good-naturedly heckling the few people leaving for other engagements.

Velvet, Ambrosia, and Silk [18+]

At the brothel, she seems to have fun pulling out her more ribald repertoire, bouncing classics like Need A Little Sugar in My Bowl and Empty Bed Blues off the lavishly appointed parlor walls.

Regardless of the venue, after she’s finished her set and bowed to scattered applause, Miss Holloway will usually vanish into back halls for some ten minutes before reappearing with the smell of smoke on her jacket and a glass of water in her hand to take a seat and people-watch. She looks content, and perhaps a little like she’d welcome company — or inquiries by instrumentalists.

[For Grace’s range, think Sheryl Lee Ralph’s voice performing Bessie Smith’s oeuvre. You can find an example on Grace’s journal, or the linked Silent Night cover on the TDM!]

There ain't no use to hurrying 'cause you wanna prance / You've got all night to do that dance

In her free time, Grace tends to be found downtown — often at the Empty Pockets or the Oak and Iron, as if she doesn’t spend all her time there already. If she’s meeting someone for a chat — say, to catch up, or to talk about starting a music group just for fun — she’ll likely be found at the Empty Pockets, saving a seat at a table.

You don't know what to shake when you shake / What to break / Whoa, Tillie, take your time

[Wildcard! Got other ideas? Put ‘em here!]

Comments

[deepbluerevue]

(Being unable to whistle without spitting out whatever’s on your tongue is generally how the mechanics work. UGH. “Love, oh love, oh careless love…”)

“I am indeed, sir,” Grace says placidly. “Won’t take me but fifteen minutes to warm up, and I haven’t yet found me a drummer, so the kit isn’t spoken for. You go right on ahead, if you like.”

(“You've made me break a many true vow…”)

[incomingchoppers]

"You don't have a drummer yet? Really? Gee, I thought they'd be lining up to perform with you with how good you sing."

It's plausible he knows that just from going to Empty Pockets himself, right? Still unsure, he edges back toward the drum kit.

"Do you, uh... wanna practice while I'm playing?"

[deepbluerevue]

There isn’t a performer alive who doesn’t take up praise like a crow with a dropped penny. Grace still would’ve hoped to be over the way she can’t help a little smile, can’t help but think, he seems fine enough, doesn’t he? Never mind the place he likely heard her singing was in her head.

To his credit… the corn-fed tadpole doesn’t retreat entirely. Hallmark of a musician? Someone who knows she’d do a lot to get a good drummer on-side?

(Does it matter?)

“What a swell idea,” Grace says, rolling her shoulders to loosen up her throat. “If you can do something bluesy, that’ll work, but do what you’re feeling. Warming up ain’t complicated.”

(“Then you set my very soul on fire…”)

[incomingchoppers]

"Bluesy," he echoes, thoughtful. "Sure, yeah, I can do that."

Radar settles back in at the kit and picks up the drumsticks. In the back of his head, the warm melody of Grace's singing blends with the appreciative hum of a compliment received. Maybe she's not so mad at him after all -- or maybe he's just gotta keep being extra-nice to her until she's not scared anymore. He can do that, too.

He taps out a metronome beat, one two three four, then sways into a lazy blues shuffle he heard on the radio years ago.

[deepbluerevue]

True to his word, the stripling rolls out a mellow rhythm. And if there’s one thing a real performer needs, it’s the capacity to work with what you have.

The music in Grace’s head blurs, replaced with the heartbeat-thud of a tempo, laid down like a parquet dance floor, block after block slotting together to make a base. Notes wait in line, neighbors in their scale groups all poised to move, ready — breathe —

(F3, A3-flat, B3-flat B3 C4, E4-flat, F4, back down —)

Blues scales trot all the way up to G5 and down again, scatted sounds making her lips move nimble. Back up again, this time riffing around the steady beat, ribs flexing outward to power the song

[incomingchoppers]

Radar doesn't tend to make music as part of a band. He noodled around on the piano in the officer's club here and there when Father Mulcahy wasn't playing, and he's done the same at Dahlia's house sometimes (though Kris is way better at it -- Radar always gives them first dibs). Talent shows where he could drum alongside someone's guitar were few and far between. The less said about that horrible out-of-tune bugle that literally earned him rotten tomatoes to the face, the better.

Here like this, though, he can really let the music surround him. He listens with his regular ears and not-so-regular ears both, lets it catch him in its current, and as it sweeps him along, it feels like Grace's singing moves his drumsticks all on their own. Radar knows just when to slow a beat to match the syncopation of the blues; how to add a shimmer of cymbal to complement her voice. There's none of the crazy showmanship of his earlier solo, nothing to distract from the true star of the show. Like always, Radar's at his best when he's playing support.

[deepbluerevue]

As Grace warms up, her already-rich voice smooths out, goes supple and warm as her muscles stretch and wake. The notes come easier, more fluidly, the high and low ends sounding better-supported instead of strained.

(It feels like singing along with her own brain, something close to that perfect state of flow with a band that knows each other. Almost unsettling: she’s poised to feel out the quirks of a new player, and she just doesn’t ever need to.

He’d be perfect accompaniment. She’d hardly even need to think about it. Damn.)

She winds to a stop. “Well,” she says. “I sure do feel properly prepared, now. Just what the doctor ordered.”

(“All my happiness bereft…”)

[incomingchoppers]

Radar ends with another shimmering ripple on the cymbals, lets it drift away into a gentle punctuation to Grace's singing. He beams. "Yeah? Wow, you sound good even when you're just practicing. That was fun!"

He folds the drumsticks into his lap, tapping his toes like an excited kid.

"...You know, uh." With tentative hope. "If you want me to stick around for the show too I can. I just gotta make a couple more deliveries and let my girlfriend know I'll be a little late getting home is all."