Press
January 28, 2008
I heart Bret Mosley
If you didn’t get it the first three times my boss and I either blogged or wrote about Bret Mosley, here it is again: we really, really like him.
He’s played the Bearsville Theater before, but Saturday he opened for the Blind Boys of Alabama and was just amazing. I’ve never seen him play with a cellist before so when he told me a cellist would be there, playing alongside a bass, drums and dobro, I really didn’t know what to expect.
In his two ponytails, Mosley started singing about preaching the blues while spanking his lap-style dobro and it wasn’t long until some people couldn’t sit still. After a while, it dawned on you, if you didn’t know already, that this guy isn’t from Brooklyn, which is where’s he’s lived for about 20 years. He’s from Texas and that’s where he gets his grit from. His music is a mix between folk rock, blues, funk and Americana and his lyrics are deep without sounding pretentious.
He should be playing Bonnaroo or jam cruise and should be on a major label. In fact, one of his songs, “Supermartyr,” which was written by his cellist, Trevor, actually charted No. 15 on the college charts. Cool, right? One of the reasons Robin and I love him so much is that besides being extremely talented, he’s humble and grateful and doesn’t take any of this for granted.
Back to the cello. Normally a classical instrument, it seemed to fit right in alongside the dobro and actually seemed to soften up the gritty sound of the song. The two seemed to compliment each other instead of sounding out of place.
By the way, what was out of the place was the chick dancing off to the left side of the stage. I don’t know what she thought she was doing, I know she thought she was dancing, but to the rest of us it look like she was doing stretching exercises after having a few beers. Honey, next time, please do us all a favor and stay in your seat.
He played about 10 songs, but for me, the one that stood out the most was his version of “Amazing Grace.” It was sped up and sung with a twang, but non of the reverence was taken out of the song. Mosley made it his own and the result was a new spin on a classic, which just might become a modern classic.
Seriously, check out Bret’s Myspace page and give his stuff a listen. www.myspace.com/bretmosley. The worst thing that could happen is you find something cool to listen to instead of the stuff that’s force-fed to you over the radio.
—Sandy Tomcho