By Yael Menahem
Oregon Daily Emerald
“I can’t believe people came to see me in
Eugene,” singer/songwriter Toshi Reagon
told the WOW Hall audience at her Feb. 9
show.
She shouldn’t have been so surprised.
Offering anything from blues, folk, Led
Zeppelin, Metallica and Joni Mitchell,
' Reagon astonished the crowd with her per
formance on stage. She’s been wowing music
critics with her fourth solo CD, “The Right
eous Ones,” which was released last Septem
ber.
Reagon says her music can’t be categorized
and that’s how she likes it. She opened the
show with “There Are” and immediately
captured the crowd, which couldn’t sway to
the songs enough.
Even though Reagon sat on a stool through
out the whole show, her body movement
showed that she was happy with the way the
concert was going. The sound was good, her
voice came through and the audience could
n’t get enough of her music.
She continually joked with the audience
about the number of people that actually
showed up, and once she even asked if her
mother, founder of the influential group
Sweet Honey in the Rock, asked all of the
people to attend.
In fact, she doesn’t try to appeal to a certain
demographic of people, and the WOW Hal]
gig was no exception — people from ages 10
to 70 were dancing.
“Everybody can come to the shows,’
Reagon said in a phone interview a few days
before her Eugene performance. “We don’1
care who you’re sleeping with, we just wanl
you to come in the room and be with us and
have some fun.”
Her music influences span several genres
and Reagon says her mother Bernice intro
duced her to music without limiting what he)
daughter could listen to.
She “put me in a really good space around
music and now my taste in what I like to lis
ten to and play are very varied,” said the New
York residept, who was born in Atlanta anc
raised in Washington, D.C.
Reagon isn’t a newcomer to the;music
scene.
Ten years ago, Lenny Kravitz approachec
Singer/songwriter Toshi Reagon uses a
diverse fusion of sounds to musically
captivate a rockin’ audience
her and asked Keagon to
open for him on his first
world tour, and she ac
cepted the offer. Reagon said that
Kravitz had never heard her play, but he just
got a “vibe” from her. She toured on his Eng
land and U.S. shows.
Reagon described that tour as “a beautiful
experience,” but she doesn’t credit her suc
cess to the tour. She has recorded four CDs,
she has toured the country and she has made
a name for herself on her own.
“Fierce and uncompromising... a shower
of retro fun, urban blues and folk ... to hear
her is to believe,” The New Yorker wrote in
praise.
In 1993, she signed a deal with Elektra but
left before recording a CD. She said she’s not
bitter about the ordeal, but she realized that
recording with a smaller label appeals to her
more.
“You hope that you work with people who
understand what you’re doing and not hying
to change too much of who you are as an
artist,” Reagon said.
“The Righteous Ones” features songs such
as “Real Love” — accompanied by Sweet
Honey in the Rock —which at the end breaks
into Zeppelin-like guitars. Reagon catches
her listeners and her audiences offguard
with the contrasts, and that’s part of
her appeal.
When introducing the track
“Drive it Home” at the WOW Hall,
Reagon said the song wasn’t nec
essarily lyrically rich, but she
promised 172 degrees on the
dance scale, and it was. Then
she turned it down a bit with
“Mean Ol’ World,” a “Dy
lanesque folk country song,”
as Reagon described it.
Reagon’s first CD, in 1990,
was a collaboration with her
mother, while her second
one, “Justice,” came out on
the independent record la
bel Flying Fish (now
Rounder Records).
In 1994, Reagon paid for
and released “The Rejected
Stone,” her first record af
ter being dropped by Elek
tra. The CD was warmly
received by critics but
didn’t demonstrate her
amazing capabilities as
a live performer due to
the careful production of
songs.
None of that was appar
ent at last Wednesday’s
show. When she started
singing a quiet cover song,
she felt the audience was
too loud so she stopped
the show and asked that
all conversations be
held until afterwards.
She stressed that
everything was said
“with a lot of love,” but
people came to see her,
and she wanted them
to enjoy a Reagon con
cert. ^ .
Fans have said that
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1
her shows have changed tneir lives, une said
she takes no credit for that, although she is
glad that her music can influence people in
such a positive way.
“I don’t know if this is going to change the
world,” she was quoted saying at a recent
Philadelphia concert. “All I’m trying to do is
maybe if you get involved in this show, it’s
going to change the energy in your body and
you’ll sleep a little better tonight. ”
“The Righteous Ones” ends on a surpris
ing heavy metal sound in the innocent
sounding title, “I’m Just an Egg Don’t Mind
Me,” which turns out to be one of Reagon’s
favorite songs, she acknowledged.
She laughed when talking about that track:
“I’m a head banger. I love Metallica, and Kiss
still has a warm place in my heart. ”
Reagon is an enlightening addition to a
music world that has been overtaken by
teenage pop sounds. She’s mature and her
sound should appeal to just about anyone be
cause she doesn’t limit herself to one genre of
music.
Be sure to catch her next time she performs
in Eugene. Meanwhile, get a taste of her in
credible fusion of music in “The Righteous
Ones.”
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concert at tite WOW Hall.
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in touch
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