Cabaret Review: Prime Prine: Marissa Mulder's John Prine tribute is a reminder of his importance

I never thought of myself as a fan of the late singer/songwriter John Prine, but Marissa Mulder’s “Souvenirs,” a Prine tribute show that played The Blue Strawberry April 21 and 22, showed that I was wrong.

It turns out that I have admired Prine’s songs for years. It’s just that my mind’s ear hears many of them in voices as diverse as those of John Denver (“Paradise”) and Bette Midler (“Hello in There”). Which just shows how influential Prine was even when he wasn’t singing.

Marissa Mulder at The Blue Strawberry

So I was surprised at the high percentage of the evening’s 16 songs that I not only knew but loved, especially in Mulder’s winning, country-inflected performances. When I saw Mulder’s Tom Waits show back in 2014, I was impressed by how Mulder magically metamorphosed into the battered, world-weary, ironic narrator who lurks in all of Waits's lyrics. This time around, she morphed into a fresh-faced folk singer who might have just come from a busking gig in a subway station, complete with a bit of the rural twang that you can hear in Prine’s own voice.

Back then, I called it a startling act of theatrical legerdemain. It was less startling this time partly because I was prepared for it and partly because the transformation was less radical since Mulder is, as Stephen Holden has written, an “engagingly sunny” performer by nature. Still, it shows theatrical smarts and an understanding of the importance of completely internalizing the lyric of a song—a fundamental skill for any cabaret artist.

With Jon Weber on piano and St. Louis’s own Brian Clark on guitar, Mulder delivered a solid evening of droll gems like “Illegal Smile,” “In Spite of Ourselves,” and “Dear Abby,” as well as sniffle-inducing sentimental numbers such as “Hello in There” and “I Remember Everything.”  In between, we got little biographical bits about Prine and the origins of the songs—most of which were news to me, and which were fascinating in their own right.

I never knew, for example, that “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore” (a song which is still sadly relevant) and “Hello in There” were both inspired Prine’s experiences as a mail carrier. Or that the titular town of “Paradise” was a real place the songwriter had visited as a child before (as the lyric goes) “Mr. Peabody’s coal company” did, indeed, wipe it out of existence in pursuit of a buck. And I certainly had no idea that he played the last song he ever wrote, “I Remember Everything,” at his first-ever Paris concert on February 13, 2020.

The show was a sellout and the crowd loved him, but the trip proved fatal for Prine, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 when he returned home. He died on April 7th.

Musically, Prine’s songs follow a fairly rigid pattern—verse followed by multiple refrains—but Mulder, Weber, and Clark all brought enough variety to their performances so that the evening rarely felt repetitious. Clark had some fine solos and provided sensitive accompaniment for the rueful “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.” Weber’s sparing use of the "slip note" piano style associated with "Nashville sound" architect Floyd Cramer added to the folksy atmosphere.

Thanks to Jim Dolan for bringing Marissa Mulder back to town. I missed her Lennon/McCartney show here, so it was good to see her in action again. To find out when she’s coming to your town, check out her web site. For information on what’s coming up at The Blue Strawberry, check theirs.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Lifting Waits

Who: Marissa Mulder
What: The Songs of Tom Waits
When: February 27 - March 1, 2014
Where: The Gaslight Cabaret Festival

Marissa Mulder's "The Songs of Tom Waits," which had its premiere last March at New York's Metropolitan Room under the more accurately descriptive title "Tom…In His Words," comes to The Gaslight Cabaret Festival dripping with praise. In a profile of Ms. Mulder in the current issue (March/April 2014) of Cabaret Scenes, Stephen Hanks reports that the show "drew rave reviews from almost the entire New York Cabaret press, including Stephen Holden of the New York Times who called it 'Far and away the season's best cabaret show'." Mr. Hanks himself calls it "surprisingly stunning."

It's not hard to see why. Ms. Mulder's remarkable evening of the words and songs of Tom Waits is a startling act of theatrical legerdemain in which the young and ethereally pretty singer magically metamorphoses into the battered, world-weary, ironic narrator who lurks in all of Waits's lyrics. Songs written for the singer/songwriter's gravely, growly, rusty chain link fence of a voice ought to sound wildly inappropriate sung in Ms. Mulder's light, clear mezzo—but they don't. Even when she's singing songs obviously written for a male narrator like "Jersey Girl" or "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night," Ms. Mulder's understanding of and respect for the lyric makes her performance utterly credible.

Much of that comes from the way Ms. Mulder has thoroughly internalized the meaning of Waits's words—spoken or sung—and made them her own. But no small part of the show's success also comes from her expert use of what is known in the cabaret world as "focus"—clearly communicating the object of each song's lyric to the audience. There's a great example of that in "Downtown Train" in which she clearly and consistently places the object of the narrator's existential longing up and to her right. When she sings "I know your window and I know it’s late / I know your stairs and your doorway / I walk down your street and past your gate / I stand by the light of the four way" you can almost see that window and that deserted midnight street. The song isn't just sung, it's acted. And damned convincingly.

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the show, at least for me, was the poignant anti-war protest song "The Day After Tomorrow." Mr. Hanks tells us she "stunned the audience at the Lincoln Center Rose Theater" when she performed this at the Mabel Mercer Foundation's annual Cabaret Convention last October.  She introduces the song with the songwriter's own words about both the futility and importance of writing protest songs when the nation is clearly hurtling "at 90 miles per hour down a dead-end street" and then delivers it with a stillness that emphasizes the heartbreaking reality faced by soldiers serving in a pointless and unnecessary war. This should be mandatory listening for what Al Franken calls the "chicken hawks" in congress and their media enablers.

Backing up all this, both instrumentally and vocally, are Ms. Mulder's New York compatriots Jon Weber (piano and music director), Mike Rosengarten (guitar), and Ritt Henn (electric stand-up bass). All three have chances to strut their stuff. Mr. Rosengarten had a fierce solo in the chilling, Raymond Chandlereque " A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun," for example, while Mr. Henn impressed me in "Jersey Girl." Mr. Weber's bluesy piano opens and closes the show, and in between his arrangements display many of the songs in a new light. Until I heard it here, for example, I never realized how much "Broken Bicycles" sounds like a gloss on Ivanovici's "Danube Waves"—better known as "The Anniversary Song." I have no idea whether that was intentional on Waits's part or not, but the irony is certainly rich in any case.

That said, there were some aspects of the evening that didn't entirely work for me. Nearly every song was taken at a tempo somewhere down around Larghissimo which, while it helped maintain the world-weary mood, did sometimes become a bit of a drag. Waits's own performances of his songs often have more of a rhythmic pulse, as I recall. The lighting was also nearly uniformly dark, which sometimes obscured Ms. Mulder's features too much.

Still, that's minor stuff, the equivalent of 37 cents in pocket change in a cinder block bar at closing time. Granted, the show's relentless evocation of Waits's bleak, film noir psychological landscape probably isn't for everyone. But if you're a fan of the songwriter's work or someone who (like me) admires his contributions to the canon of American song without ever rising to fanhood, you won't want to miss this show. Even if you're just willing to explore the territory outside the core of the Great American Songbook, I'd say Marissa Mulder's "The Songs of Tom Waits" is worth your attention. It's a solid piece of musical theatre and a worthy addition to the Gaslight Cabaret Festival lineup.

The Gaslight Cabaret Festival continues through April 25 at The Gaslight Theatre, 358 North Boyle in the Central West End. For more information: gaslightcabaretfestival.com. Note that the Gaslight has no parking lot, so you'll want to arrive early to grab a spot on the street when you attend a show. Fortunately the adjoining West End Grill has a nice assortment of food and drink to occupy you until show time.

Song Llst:
Emotional Weather Report
Better Off Without A Wife
Ol '55
Jersey Girl
Downtown Train
A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun
Rainbow Sleeves
Broken Bicycles
Day After Tomorrow
Alice
I'm Still Here
Encore: Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night / Ol '55 / Anywhere I Lay My Head