Red Wanting Blue, a six-piece ensemble from Columbus, Ohio that boasts songs of Americana grit and emotional resonance covering an impressive gamut of themes from personal enlightenment, romantic yearning and social relevance stormed the tiny stage at the legendary Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village on a windswept evening to alight a packed crowd. One of the most dynamic live bands around, led by singer/songwriter Scott Terry’s spit-gravel voice and torrid stage presence, RWB combine a pulsing beat, ghostly keyboards, and chiming guitars through fluid live arrangements that abduct an audience like few others.
The just over one-hour-long set closed out a charity event for the UCLA Health Operation Mend showcasing the country/blues/rock/folk expanse of RWB’s song cycle, which has stretched across three decades. Drummer Dean Anshutz, guitarist Eric Hall, Greg Rahm on keys, Mark McCullough on bass, and newest member, Bobby Yang on electric fiddle, form an impenetrable sound that both cradles and thrusts their singer’s impassioned expressions.
Dressed in a denim vest and a grey hat tipped on his head, the bearded Terry used his body as a conduit for the notes coursing through him, his shouts and hoots accent a cooling baritone that delivered stirring renditions of two new RWB songs, their latest album’s title track, “Light It Up,” and “Time’s For You.” Both feature the band’s signature slow buildups to rousing choruses filled with soaring harmonies and echoed fiddle descants. The similarly effusive “Run For Your Life” had the band lifting Terry to testify as if recovering from having been violently tossed from his horse on the road to Damascus.
To be in the room with RWB when they’re cooking makes that last sentence less hyperbolic. There is a secular temple quality to the band’s sets that arc toward a higher spiritual plane found in the cleverly arranged cover of the late, great Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” and their classic folk-dirge, “My Name is Death,” during which Terry unfurls a light beneath his chin to present a first-person greeting from the grim reaper.
A final highlight of the evening was a soulful duet from Terry and country singer/songwriter Morgan Miles of The Voice fame on the band’s 2019 torch song, “I’ve Got a Feeling It Hurts.” The lanky blonde’s cracked bluesy lilt perfectly meshed with Terry’s beseeching growl, which added further pathos to an evening of emotional twists and turns that underscored this splendid appearance in a room that holds fast to the echoes of musical distinction.
Photo by Ehud Lazin
