15 Oct – Vocal Trip to Missississippi

This afternoon my coworker (who’s kitchen was invaded the other night), reminded me of a female blues concert that was tonight. It had completely slipped my mind, however my evening was available. We made plans to meet up at 8pm for the event.

After work, I managed to fit in my weekly run on the 5.5 mile loop through the woods and some residential areas. It’s a great challenge as there are fairly steep hills. It was enough running to make room in my belly for a meal at my favorite restaurant… the one where I’m treated like a princess. They were quite happy to see me and this time I sat in the vacant wine-bar/lounge room. The host lit a fire in the nearby wood stove, which made for a perfect ambiance while I finished the final knits and purls on my hat project. The host offered some veggie options not on the menu (stuffed aubergine or mushroom risotto), which was very kind of him. The aubergine dish lived up to the delicious expectations. A couple ladies (one with a big blond afro) sat at a neighboring table and devoured the words on some papers, in addition to their chicken plates. They had to be in some artsy business (who does hair like that?!) and thought maybe they were attending the concert tonight. All I knew I was looking forward to the “chocolate fondant” dessert which was being prepared by “Chef” (as called by the Host). The chocolate plate was a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate lava cake with a scoop of strawberry ice cream (homemade I think), drizzled with strawberry syrup and a vanilla sauce (both homemade too). Perfection!

My happy belly checked in for the night and I paid the check to get on with the next activity. My coworker and I met up at the hotel lobby and strolled (it was cold!) to the venue down the street. It took a long 10 minutes to wait through the line outside. My coworker met a friend in the army years back and they’ve kept in touch. She told me “she looks like a boy and she’s a lesbian”. Sure enough, this friend, her partner and an old large lady joined us in line. The old lady was the friend’s neighbor whom really appreciates the blues music and local blues festival. They invited my coworker and I to join them at their reserved table… at the feet of the musicians on stage. We were front and center. The old lady made for good chatting while waiting for the show to begin. She disappeared at one point, and the friend mentioned she’s back-stage warming up the performers. She returned to the table for a few minutes and then went up on stage and spoke (in Norwegian) to the audience before introducing the singers. She thanked the audience for coming from Notodden, Kongsberg, and even California. Ha!

The two lady artists were up on stage with their guitars and the lead was telling a story. She, too, managed a California shout-out, however it was more along the lines of “and California we’ll be speaking Norwegian, so you may not understand”. Doh! Yes, I missed the jokes and the small stories, however understood most of what was going on. The show was the history of women in blues. Many of the women they were featuring were from Mississippi. On the screen behind the singers was a slide show of each of the historical blues artists. They included, Memphis Minnie, Big Mama Thornton, Jessie Mae Hemphill and Janis Joplin among others. One of the ladies had even spent time in Mississippi and visited with Jessie Mae. They showed some home footage of the ladies singing one of her songs together. Every song was American and they sounded American when singing them. I was startled when they began speaking Norwegian after the songs as you expect them to speak English after such great lyric pronunciation. When singing in English, there was zero accent. When speaking in English, there was a heavy accent. It’s amazing what melodies and repetitiveness can do for language pronounciation.

Fairly early in the performance, a Norwegian fiddler joined the duo. She had a big blond afro. This fiddler and one of the guitarists were the restaurant table neighbors! Apparently, she’s a well-known and respected fiddler in Norway. She’s close to my age. After the show we were introduced by the old lady and she had remembered me from the restaurant. She had some interesting musician and band experiences (from what I could tell of a Norwegian conversation which is not much).

Since I didn’t take any pictures, here’s a few (found on-line) of the musicians:
Rita Egnedalen and Margit Bakken Blues duo
Tuva Livsdatter Folk music fiddler

They were really talented musicians and it was a fun evening, full of small surprises.