Saffire Blues Performance An Absolute Crowd-Pleaser

Saffire the Uppity Blues Women Wednesday, March 15, The Met

If bad luck were dollars, Saffire the Uppity Blues Women would be millionaires.

A partial list of woes from the acoustic trio’s concert at The Met Wednesday:

A sound system that just wouldn’t cooperate.

A broken guitar string on the final song, just before the encore.

An airline that lost their luggage, stranding them in Spokane with little more than the clothes on their backs and their instruments.

Despite all that, and maybe because of it, the blues women’s performance was a delight.

The women promised a “living-room show,” casual and spontaneous, and they delivered.

“We thought about doing the show in the nude,” singer, pianist and guitar player Ann Rabson told the near-capacity crowd before the concert.

Rabson’s honky-tonk, boogie-woogie piano playing and bluesy voice carried the group through about two-and-a-half hours of songs, from the aptly titled “Fly Right” to the beautifully written “Hopin’ It’ll Be Alright” and the hopping “Barnyard Boogie.”

But the informal format allowed each woman to shine.

Gaye Adegbalola brought the largely middle-aged female audience to tears of laughter with her songs “Bitch with a Bad Attitude,” “Silver Beaver” and “Big Ovaries.”

“I think it was last week we figured out between the three of us we’ve got three ovaries,” Adegbalola said at the end of the number. But that doesn’t matter, she said, “Ovaries is a state of mind.”

Andra Faye’s work on bass, mandolin and vocals stood out on the Ma Rainey song “Yonder Comes the Blues,” opening number “Because of You” and Patsy Cline cover “Crazy.”

Unfortunately, Faye brought out her fiddle for just one song. She played it so beautifully, it would’ve been nice to hear it a bit more.

To look at the three women, you’d peg them more for soccer moms than soul mamas. All became professional musicians after lengthy careers in other fields, Rabson as a computer analyst, Adegbalola as a biochemical researcher and junior high teacher, and Faye as a nurse.

“After April, I’m going to be able to get cheaper biscuits at Hardees,” the gray-haired Rabson said from her piano bench.

If somber, drown-your-sorrows-in-Jack-Daniels blues is your bag, the Uppity Blues Women probably wouldn’t fill it. They sing about heartache and failed relationships and even thunder thighs, but each song has an unmistakable air of hope and dignity. No self-pity among these three.

Who says the blues have to make you feel bad to be good?