WINE, WOMEN & SONG —MATRACA BERG, GRETCHEN PETERS, SUZY BOGGUSS —LIVE AT GREEN’S GROCERY STORE (DVD)

[Maurice Hope]

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With the success of the girls’ in the round live gigs the past ten years it was inevitable they would record a live show. What better way than on DVD opposed to CD I ask. Otherwise, the listener would miss the sparkle of their unlimited supply of smiles and facial expressions as each one gives up their soul.

While each act has successful careers going as solo acts and songwriters it is as a trio they become this tour-de-force. The chemistry is just right. As you will hear once you place this DVD on your player. Though they actually perform only eleven songs few will complain. Personally, good though the humour and inter-play between them and additional footage I would have loved them to have done a handful more. As it is we have the girls speak of how they all got together and the history of some of the songs. Berg in particular has been underexposed over here and the US does through her songs ‘South Of Heaven’ and one they wrote together at the time of the Gulf War ‘Black Ribbons’ that has Peters star on mandolin help correct this. Her voice is a little unusual and contains a meaningful strength and beauty those coming through today don’t posses. Peters likewise is an artist who unerringly leans into a song and has a rare ability to creep up on the listener such is her subtle artistry. The third, and by no means least performer Suzy Bogguss enjoyed a bunch of chart singles during the 1990s showcases a song with the girls backstage that appears on her current album, American Songbook. I am talking about the old western ballad ‘Shenandoah’. Another to gain inclusion this way is the compelling ‘Farther Along’. Intimate and beautifully serene the girls provide, if proof were needed how it is all about the song plus, the great joy they gain from performing together. 

Recorded at the venue where the girls first started playing together ten years ago on what was a desperately stormy evening the wit and charm served as they perform great versions of Lowell George’s ‘Heartache’ (Bogguss) and Tom Russell’s ‘Guadalupe’ (Peters) and the one that starts them off at a gallop ‘Outbound Plane’ is top-class. Go but it now, enjoy and then book a ticket to Peters’ forth-coming UK tour, and though Berg and Bogguss won’t be with her she is a singer-songwriter who makes her audience feel like they have been invited to her living room as friends. So warm is her style.       

 

                                                            Maurice Hope