Jesse DeNatale Brings It All Back Home
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Track:Montgomery Street
Whether onetime local boy Jesse DeNatale will ever top the charts is a question only time will answer. But on Saturday night, when the folk-rocker took a seat at the grand piano in the barn space at Toby's in Point Reyes Station, CA, he was a star.We all knew it; we all treated him like one.
Jesse DeNatale performing at Toby's in Point Reyes. Photo by Michael GoldbergJesse, who Tom Waits has called "a unique and original American voice,” looked a bit like a Bohemian Bruce Springsteen, with his wild curly black hair, moustache and goatee. He was wearing jeans, a black cowboy shirt and a red kerchief around his neck. And the onetime Inverness, CA resident was in a great mood, giving shout-outs to old friends, smiling, telling the occasional joke, introducing most songs with a short anecdote.He brought out his mentor, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, for a duet on Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues," and later his older daughter, Scout, to sit next to him on the piano bench and sing with him on another song, “Drift Away.”Backed by a superb four-piece band - Kirk Heydt on sax and cello, Tom Heyman on guitar and pedal steel, standup bassist Paul Olguin and drummer Andrew Griffin - that had a kind of cracked Beat-jazz-rock sound, DeNatale's performance was a conversation with the audience of several hundred fans, mostly West Marin locals.He began with Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." "This goes out to Toby," said DeNatale, before offering a spirited version of the most famous of all folk songs. It was both a way to honor the late father/grandfather of his friends, Chris and Nick Giacomini, who run Toby’s (a produce store, yoga studio, coffee bar, art gallery and occasional concert venue), and a way to make it clear to everyone there that even if he now lives in San Francisco with his wife, artist Carla Caletti, and their young daughter Lucinda, DeNatale knows West Marin - the people and the place."It's like playing at home," he had said to me a few days before the show. "Sometimes you play in a country or state that's new to you and it's one thing, but playing at home holds a special meaning."DeNatale - who also played a Guild acoustic steel-string guitar and harmonica - is one of a long line of hipster jazz men, soulful folk singers and literate folk-rockers. His music is of a piece with the work of Woody Guthrie and Mose Allison, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits. Like all of those performers and numerous others, he has borrowed from the past, but created something unique, through force of personality and vision. His songs are based on his life and his observations; he spins stories that are both personal and universal. Consider "Lucinda," the touching song he says he wrote as his wife was giving birth to his younger daughter. "Come on skip to my Lu/ There's a place/ In the world for you/ Come on skip to my Lu/ My darling," goes the chorus.His set included many of the songs on his two excellent albums - Soul Parade and Shangri-La West - including "Children of the Sun," "Shine Your Light," "All in the Name," "Dreamer's Holiday," Montgomery Street," "The Bell," and "Keep On Walkin'." He transformed the large warehouse space into an intimate nightclub.And about that conversation I mentioned. He spoke of his job years ago busing tables at the old Station House Café when it was located across Main St. in the space now occupied by Rosie's Cowboy Cookhouse. He told us that if he was ever able to buy the Bovine Bakery he'd rename it the Blackbird Café because of the beautiful sound of the blackbirds that you can hear there. And then he sang "Shangri-La West," which begins with a line about sitting "in the Blackbird Café" after work.One of the things I like about DeNatale's music, and what he shared with us at Toby's, is his optimism. "Well, I just don't think I see any other alternative, really," he told me. "'Cause [the alternative], it's a downward spiral. I'm not Mr. Sunshine all the time, ask my family. But there's a lot of inspired people around who have a lot of good stuff to say about life. So that's motivating, and just the idea of being in love with life - does that sound corny? It's a pretty wondrous thing. I feel like I'm like everyone else. Everyone must feel some optimism to get up and get out of the house and do what they do."At Toby's Saturday night, Jesse DeNatale did what he does best, and we dug it, yes we did.Note: Opening the show was an exceptional young folk singer from Canada, Adrien Sala who knocked me out with his passionate delivery of about a half dozen original songs including "Ode To Rimbaud" and "Dead On Wood Mountain." Sala has that wise-beyond-his-years just came down from the Appalachian Mountains sound. I hear Dylan and Jimmy Rodgers in his voice. And Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin' Jack Elliott too. I'll be featuring one of his songs on the MOG home page soon, so keep an eye out for it.
Jesse DeNatale performing at Toby's in Point Reyes. Photo by Michael GoldbergJesse, who Tom Waits has called "a unique and original American voice,” looked a bit like a Bohemian Bruce Springsteen, with his wild curly black hair, moustache and goatee. He was wearing jeans, a black cowboy shirt and a red kerchief around his neck. And the onetime Inverness, CA resident was in a great mood, giving shout-outs to old friends, smiling, telling the occasional joke, introducing most songs with a short anecdote.He brought out his mentor, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, for a duet on Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues," and later his older daughter, Scout, to sit next to him on the piano bench and sing with him on another song, “Drift Away.”Backed by a superb four-piece band - Kirk Heydt on sax and cello, Tom Heyman on guitar and pedal steel, standup bassist Paul Olguin and drummer Andrew Griffin - that had a kind of cracked Beat-jazz-rock sound, DeNatale's performance was a conversation with the audience of several hundred fans, mostly West Marin locals.He began with Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." "This goes out to Toby," said DeNatale, before offering a spirited version of the most famous of all folk songs. It was both a way to honor the late father/grandfather of his friends, Chris and Nick Giacomini, who run Toby’s (a produce store, yoga studio, coffee bar, art gallery and occasional concert venue), and a way to make it clear to everyone there that even if he now lives in San Francisco with his wife, artist Carla Caletti, and their young daughter Lucinda, DeNatale knows West Marin - the people and the place."It's like playing at home," he had said to me a few days before the show. "Sometimes you play in a country or state that's new to you and it's one thing, but playing at home holds a special meaning."DeNatale - who also played a Guild acoustic steel-string guitar and harmonica - is one of a long line of hipster jazz men, soulful folk singers and literate folk-rockers. His music is of a piece with the work of Woody Guthrie and Mose Allison, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits. Like all of those performers and numerous others, he has borrowed from the past, but created something unique, through force of personality and vision. His songs are based on his life and his observations; he spins stories that are both personal and universal. Consider "Lucinda," the touching song he says he wrote as his wife was giving birth to his younger daughter. "Come on skip to my Lu/ There's a place/ In the world for you/ Come on skip to my Lu/ My darling," goes the chorus.His set included many of the songs on his two excellent albums - Soul Parade and Shangri-La West - including "Children of the Sun," "Shine Your Light," "All in the Name," "Dreamer's Holiday," Montgomery Street," "The Bell," and "Keep On Walkin'." He transformed the large warehouse space into an intimate nightclub.And about that conversation I mentioned. He spoke of his job years ago busing tables at the old Station House Café when it was located across Main St. in the space now occupied by Rosie's Cowboy Cookhouse. He told us that if he was ever able to buy the Bovine Bakery he'd rename it the Blackbird Café because of the beautiful sound of the blackbirds that you can hear there. And then he sang "Shangri-La West," which begins with a line about sitting "in the Blackbird Café" after work.One of the things I like about DeNatale's music, and what he shared with us at Toby's, is his optimism. "Well, I just don't think I see any other alternative, really," he told me. "'Cause [the alternative], it's a downward spiral. I'm not Mr. Sunshine all the time, ask my family. But there's a lot of inspired people around who have a lot of good stuff to say about life. So that's motivating, and just the idea of being in love with life - does that sound corny? It's a pretty wondrous thing. I feel like I'm like everyone else. Everyone must feel some optimism to get up and get out of the house and do what they do."At Toby's Saturday night, Jesse DeNatale did what he does best, and we dug it, yes we did.Note: Opening the show was an exceptional young folk singer from Canada, Adrien Sala who knocked me out with his passionate delivery of about a half dozen original songs including "Ode To Rimbaud" and "Dead On Wood Mountain." Sala has that wise-beyond-his-years just came down from the Appalachian Mountains sound. I hear Dylan and Jimmy Rodgers in his voice. And Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin' Jack Elliott too. I'll be featuring one of his songs on the MOG home page soon, so keep an eye out for it.
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